








°o. 


















MAN 



AND HIS MOTIVES. 



GEORGE MOORE, M.D., 

MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, LONDON, ETC. ; AU- 
THOR OF "THE POWER OF THE SOUL OVER THE BODY," "THE 
USE OF THE BODY IN RELATION TO THE MIND," ETC. 



"I live to move."— Sir J. Davies, 1599. 




NEW YORK: 
HARPER * BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

8 2 CLIFF STREET. 



PREFACE. 



This work is somewhat religious ; but it is 
hoped that the reader will not deem an apology 
necessary on that account, since it is impossible to 
reflect on the nature and motives of man, without 
concluding that religion is the end and purpose of 
reason. 

It was formerly the author's ambition to write 
acceptably on subjects more strictly professional, 
but circumstances having pressed the higher ob- 
jects of thought upon his attention, he feels con- 
strained to express his convictions, not because 
others have not better exhibited those truths which 
influence his own mind, but because the manner 
in which he has felt and presented thern may suit- 
ably meet the state of some other hearts, and in- 
duce in them those sympathies, without which life, 
instead of brightening toward its close, is apt to 
become dark indeed. 



IV PREFACE. 

The topics propounded demand and deserve the 
fullest consideration of every man, but especially 
of him whose business it is to administer to the 
relief of mental and physical disorder. The medi- 
cal practitioner can scarcely be engaged in his 
duties, with a right feeling of their importance, 
without discovering that moral influences operate 
very extensively, both in causing and in curing 
the majority of maladies. He sees, too, that re- 
ligious hope enables a patient to bear calmly, 
and even cheerfully, those evils which therapeutic 
agents, however important, can neither remove nor 
ameliorate, while the absence of religion often 
aggravates disease, and adds terror to death, 

The thoughts presented in this volume are such 
as occurred to the author, while fully occupied in 
his profession, and are those that his intimacy with 
sufferers and with suffering leads him to believe 
are most needed and most neglected. 

The sick bed tests a man almost as much as the 
martyr's pyre; and those who there see something 
more than bodily disorder, often learn lessons of 
the greatest practical value, in relation to the spirit- 
ual training of man. The physician thus gains in- 
struction for himself, and he who does his best to 
render such lessons available to others also, ought 



PREFACE. V 

rather to be deemed worthy of praise than of 
blame. Those views, which have encouraged the 
writer's own heart, under appointed and appropri- 
ate trial, will probably tend also, in some degree, 
to improve the faith, feeling, and practice of those 
who shall peruse, with candor and kindness, what 
has been writen in patience and hope. 

This volume was designed, in connection with 
two others — " The Power of the Soul over the 
Body in relation to Health and Morals," and " The 
Use of the Body, in relation to the Mind" — both 
of which have been so far favorably received as to 
warrant the expectation of an equally indulgent 
reception of this, which, although of rather a dif- 
ferent complexion, will probably be thought an 
appropriate companion to them. Those persons 
who are disposed to dig deep, will discover indi- 
cations in these works that they are based upon a 
substratum of more difficult materials, designedly 
kept out of sight. We give an architect credit for 
laying a good foundation,, notwithstanding he con- 
ceals it under what is intended to be familiar. 
The suggestion of an argument is usually sufficient 
for all the practical purpose of persuasion, since 
those who are reasonable enough to judge of 
moral truth, readily work out ideas in their own 



VI PREFACE. 

minds, without an elaborate logic, but still in keep- 
ing with their self-consciousness and experience. 
Truth itself is of no advantage to any man, but as 
it helps to rectify and regulate his desires, by di- 
recting his mind to right objects, thus enhancing 
his hopes as well as his enjoyments, while impart- 
ing motives to look further on in the pathway of 
heaven. 

A more philosophical style might easily have 
been assumed, with the appearance, at least, of 
greater profundity ; but that is not always shallow 
which appears transparent, not that deep w r hich is 
dark. The author prefers to express what he feels 
in such a manner as to seem but superficial truth, 
provided what he writes excites his readers to look 
deeper. He would rather invite them to contem- 
plate distinct objects than endeavor to pierce in- 
definite space, where worlds of light appear but 
as clouds, because our sight is insufficient for the 
vastness before it. Man, himself, is the grand 
wonder, " mira profunditas, Deus mens, ?nira pro- 
funditas" a depth of which each one of us may 
see a little by looking into himself; and another's 
aid is valuable only but as it may dispose or ena- 
ble a man to look within. The main object of 
the writer has been to preserve before the mind 



PREFACE. Vll 

tne grand truth, that intelligent love is the only 
rightful power of government among rational 
beings. The subject is divided into chapters, 
which may be read either consecutively or in a 
detached maner, each receiving illustration from 
the rest, and yet not requiring that illustration in 
order to be understood. There is no metaphysi 
cal evolution attempted, but throughout the work 
will be found scattered some of the writer's rea- 
sons for believing that the Bible is consistent with 
nature, with the necessities of man, and with all 
we can conceive of his Maker. Should any injuri- 
ous error have been introduced, it is sincerely 
hoped that it may be corrected by reference to 
the standard of truth, for it is the author's earnest 
prayer that all his readers may be led to walk in the 
light of a heavenly life, struggling against all delu- 
sion with unfettered soul. 

April, 1848. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAP. PAGB 

1. — MAN — PRIMITIVE AND DERIVATIVE 11 

2. — SELFHOOD — SOUL, MIND, SPIRIT 33 

3. — IMMORTALITY „ 51 

4. — MAN IN RELATION TO HIS MAKER 70 

5. — MENTAL MANIFESTATION 89 

6. — SELF-MANAGEMENT 110 

7. — ASSOCIATION 127 

8. — LIKING AND DISLIKING 148 

9. — TEACHINGS OF LIGHT 167 

10. — KNOWLEDGE 188 

11.— FAITH 205 

12.— HOPE AND FEAR 226 

13.— LOVE 247 

14. — THE LOVE OF ACTION AND POWER 272 

15. — CONSCIENCE 287 



MAN AND HIS MOTIVES, 



CHAPTER I. 

MAN — PRIMITIVE AND DERIVATIVE. 

Man is not a natural production, and the elements 
of earth are not sufficient for his completion. He 
is an embodied spirit, and from the source of his 
existence he must derive those supplies which may 
fit him to fulfill the purposes of his creation, and 
satisfy his capacity for knowledge and happiness. 

It is worthy of especial notice that there is scarcely 
a people to be named which has not among them the 
tradition or the prophecy of a perfect human nature ; 
and probably every mind imagines some model man, 
some ideal type or standard of humanity, which all 
ought to admire and imitate. But earth, as it is, has 
never been deemed his home. Some suppose him 
to have existed in a golden era long since departed ; 
others expect him yet to come. Some think that we 
are his degenerated offspring; others believe that we 
are progressively improving upon our ancestors, and 
that, in due time, the progeny of our successors shall 
be perfect beings, according to an orderly develop- 
ment, ** from inherent qualities," by which at length 
living monads become spiritual paragons, under astro- 
nomical influences and in virtue of gravitation, and 
" the modes of action depending solely on organ iz a- 



12 MAN PRIMITIVE AND DERIVATIVE. 

tion." We can not exactly calculate how long a period 
may be necessary for the purpose of converting an 
infusorial animalcule into a man, such a transformation 
never having yet been observed in progress ; but we 
are pretty well assured, by the reluctant testimony 
of infidels, as well as by the careful research of be- 
lievers, that man can not have been an inhabitant 
of earth above seven thousand years. Geology, 
ethnology, and the natural history of our race, bear 
ample testimony, in this respect at least, to the truth 
of the book of Genesis, which testimony is itself a fact 
strongly in evidence of the inspired origin of that book; 
since to guess at such coincidences in chronology and 
science is beyond the reach of fanc}^. This length of 
time seems not to be quite enough to answer the pur- 
poses of the development theory, but we can get no 
more. We are not ignorant that skulls and other 
bones of man have been discovered in caves and in 
stalagmite formations, mixed with those of extinct 
mammals, both ruminants and carnivora; and that 
these bones in no respect differ from modern speci- 
mens. It is also true that geologists are nearly 
unanimous in assigning these remains to periods far 
within the date above named, and all their conclu- 
sions on the subject tend to confirm rather than in- 
validate the statement in the book of Genesis. If, 
however, man had existed at an earlier period there 
can be no very evident reason why his fossil remains 
should not be found imbedded with those of other 
creatures in the anterior formations. 

As it appears from recent theorists that even now 
man is at best but a paulo-post chimpanzee, he could 
scarcely have become bimanal and biped at that date, 
or, at least, monkeys and men ought then to have been 
mingled in the same family circle. 

History, either sacred or profane, has no respect for 
the theory of development, and does not quite agree 



MAN PRIMITIVE AND DERIVATIVE. 13 

with it. Instead of finding mankind brutal and desti- 
tute of the arts of social comfort in the early periods 
of our race, we have reason to believe that they were 
highly civilized and cultivated ; not, it may be, after 
the complicated manner of the moderns, but still with 
sufficient decision, in two forms at least, very much 
as they now present themselves. There were those 
among the people of most ancient date who took 
pleasure in exercising power, in tyranny and rapine; 
while others, impressed by the manifestations of divine 
wisdom in the wondrous works of creation, or by the 
tradition of God's covenant with man, took delight in 
meditating upon his providence, and preserved a life 
of quiet thoughtfulness and worship. According to 
moral motives and the state of will, with regard to the 
revelations of existence, the minds of men appear 
always to have been actuated to the attainment of 
ends in keeping with their faith and knowledge. 
Religion always made the grand difference among 
mankind. There were always sons of God as well 
as of Belial. Those who, being instructed concern- 
ing righteousness, and believing and loving truth, were 
looking forward to a future life, occupied their faculties 
in subserviency to that end, while those who regarded 
the present life as their only hope, gave themselves to 
the indulgence of their tastes for sensual pleasures, 
and to the contrivance of such means as best promised 
the fulfillment of their unholy desires. This, substan- 
tially, is all we learn of the history of mankind up to 
the deluge. 

The anxiety of infidels to dispose of the deluge, and 
to satisfy themselves that they need not believe the 
Bible, is most wonderful and deplorable. How eagerly 
some of the French savans seized upon the zodiacs 
sculptured on the temples of Dendera and Esneh, 
with the hope that they had therein discovered a 
demonstration that the Mosaic statement was a mis- 



14 MAN PRIMITIVE AND DERIVATIVE. 

take. Their ingenuity would have been amusing had 
it not been impiously absurd. M. Jomard proved to 
his own satisfaction that these zodiacs were three 
thousand, and M. Dupuis that they were, at the very 
least, four thousand years older than the Christian 
era, while M. Gori would not abate a week of seven- 
teen thousand years. That their mathematical wits* 
were racked to little purpose is seen in their dis- 
crepancy. But observe how the truth at last prevails. 
M. Champollion comes forward in the promising man- 
hood of his intellect, and gives his life to the study 
of Egyptian antiquities, and instead of guessing at the 
meaning and dates of these zodiacs, learns really to 
read them, and finds that the zodiac, the date of which 
M. Dupuis had so clearly demonstrated to have been 
at least four thousand years before Christ, was actu- 
ally erected in the reign of Augustus Caesar, and that 
which M. .Gori had carried back in his imagination 
seventeen thousand years, had been raised in the time 
of Antoninus, a.d. 140. 

If we may credit the oldest history we possess, the 
correctness of which none can invalidate, the most 
difficult arts were not unknown amidst the family 
of the first man. And there is little doubt that before 
the flood the imaginations of men were refined enough 
for the invention of whatever might contribute to 
heighten the enjoyment of mere outside beauty, and 
to render evil so indomitable in the heart of man that 
to allow him to live on would be but to permit the 
propagation of iniquity in such fascinating forms as to 
banish the beauties of holiness from the earth. It 
could not have been mere ignorance that was hardened 

* " Mathematics is based upon nothing, and therefore arises 
out of nothing." — (Ok en's Physio-philosophy, p. 5.) These 
words are not quoted because they are true — we can have 
no idea of plus or minus, point, limit, form, dimension, or pro- 
portion, but from real things ; a man born blind knows nothing 
of a triangle unless he has felt its parts 



xMAN PRIMITIVE AND DERIVATIVE. 15 

against the preaching of Noah: ingenuity and unbelief, 
satisfied with their own substitutes for divine order in 
the appliances of a proud and perverted reason that 
delights in its own works, were always the resisters 
of righteousness. Savages would have been converted. 
The antediluvians in general, at the time of Noah, 
must have been skeptical geniuses, rationalists, and 
despots, who could not believe in especial judgments, 
abrupt transitions, and miraculous interferences for 
the punishment of vice. They lived under the reign 
of violence and terror, and being ingenious in disobe- 
dience, invented their own religion, and worshiped a 
mock reason while they blasphemed God, and polluted 
his sacred image in the form of man. Their spirits 
were fit to be imprisoned. 

The flood came — need it be proved ? All nations 
acknowledge it. A reserved few replenished the new 
world. Whence have we the tradition of a deluge if 
it never happened ? It was not a partial event — the 
world owns it. The Chaldeans, Assyrians, Egyptians, 
Grecians, Romans, Phoenicians, Syrians, Armenians, 
Persians, Chinese, Hindoos, Arabians, Turks, Africans, 
the North and South Americans, the Aborigines of the 
South Seas, and every stray tribe of man, all hold a 
tradition of the deluge; and science finds the record 
written on the earth — the grand catastrophe assuredly 
occurred, and faith reads its significance. The Al- 
mighty altered the face of the world which he had 
made, because the spirits of men required a judgment 
co-extensive with their abode, and they were removed 
to a place adapted to their wickedness. The living 
earth perished in the great deep; but Noah and his 
sons were not barbarians — they could enter into cove- 
nant with their Maker, for they had obeyed his voice. 
But the original evil was in their blood, and soon we 
find their offspring madly desirous of reigning without 
righteousness. That they were not, however, with- 



16 MAN PRIMITIVE AND DERIVATIVE. 

out skill, the tower of Babel bears them witness. The 
city of Nineveh was magnificent in works of art, and 
the ancient Memphis was not mean. But we will pass 
on a few hundred years. What does the progress of 
time prove ? Not that man was not mentally devel- 
oped, but that his intellect W T as ever prone to seek 
satisfaction without obeying God, and that Almighty 
interference has always been required to prevent the 
total apostasy of our race. Was Abraham, the friend 
of God, less a man than any of us, or more so than 
the first son of Adam? No; but he had superior 
motives, and in the largeness of his heart he believed 
God, and was also fit to associate with kings. Iu trust- 
ing to the absolute power of Jehovah as the sovereignty 
of mercy, and reaching forward in faith for life beyond 
death, and for an endless futurity of blessing at the 
hand of the Omnipotent, he exhibits, in his brief story, 
all that constitutes the sublimity of a human soul; 
while yet, in the folly of his fears, we see a perfect 
picture of man's infirmity and guiltiness. Thus we 
are taught, as he was, that our recovery from degra- 
dation to the true standing of an obedient and a be- 
lieving spirit is a divine work, accomplished by the 
intelligent apprehension of God's purpose to oneself, 
and a growing conformity to his will from a growing 
confidence in his love. 

The men of old were not minors in humanity. If 
we may judge from what Moses has written, he was 
as great a man as Newton: he preferred to suffer with 
the people of God rather than to dwell as a prince 
among ingenious idolaters; and he has presented us 
with reasons for trusting in Jehovah. It is true that 
he has not given us the mathematical elements of the 
celestial mechanism ; but yet Newton could discover 
such plain indications in the writings of the chosen 
shepherd that Omniscience was his teacher, that the 
philosopher would at once have distrusted his own cal- 



MAN PRIMITIVE AND DERIVATIVE. 17 

dilations had they in any instance contradicted the 
Mosaic statement. Who could credit Moses if he 
wrote merely like a philosopher? He does not seek 
for causes, but sees the hand of God ; he states facts, 
explains not physics ; he writes history, not theories ; 
he defends no hypothesis; he does not speculate: and 
instead of doubtful opinions he annunciates positive 
precepts. The moral law which he first conveyed to 
men is so perfectly suited to man's social and spiritual 
relations that to break it in any particular is evidently 
in spirit to contravene the whole, and it is so intimate 
and consistent, that, like creation itself, it bears the 
impress of its Maker, and can be no other than a tran- 
script of the Eternal Mind, humanly expressed. 

The present state of the world is i proof that Moses, 
in describing the distribution of Noah's descendants, 
stated an anticipated truth. The prediction may be 
tested now — it is the history of the world in a few 
lines. Philosophers, in tracing mankind to their origin, 
are obliged to terminate their researches in Asia, as 
the center of civilization, and the source of all those 
streams of light which have flowed over the earth. 
Both creation and the deluge place man in the central 
East. From thence Shem, Ham, and Japheth divide 
the world among their offspring. Europe was peopled 
by those of Japheth ; those of Ham spread over Africa 
and the south-western parts of Asia ; and those of 
Shem populated the teeming Orient. •« By these were 
the nations of the earth divided after the flood." (Gen. 
x. 32.) The slight statement given by Moses is suffi- 
cient for the purposes for which it was recorded — it 
effectually serves to prove the truth of prophecy God 
spake by all the prophets since the world began. Thus 
we see the fulfillment of Noah's prediction concerning 
his sons, and that the nation from whom the Deliverer 
came is not obscure. The providence of God is thus 
traced with specific relations to the final arrangement 
2 



18 MAN IK.^iiTIVE AND DERIVATIVE. 

of the nations, when in the reign of Heaven it shall 
be manifest, that from the commencement of history 
and prophecy to their consummation, the earth and 
its inhabitants have been held in the hand of their 
Maker, and regarded by Him in their totality, for glo- 
rious purposes ere long to be completed. Who told 
Moses that Noah knew that the islanders of Europe 
should colonize the East, or that Africa should be an 
oppressed land ? And so with regard to all he foretells. 
Did Moses study the doctrine of chances in Egypt, 
and speak truth by accident? Then chance is no 
longer a name for incongruous contingencies, but the 
mistress of sciences, that not only predicts but fulfills 
the miracles she utters. Avaunt, deceiving spirit! 
Ascribe not to chance the word and power of God. 
Trace a raindrop from the ocean through the clouds 
and back again to the deep, and find it there, and then 
perhaps you may be able to foretell what should hap- 
pen among the sons of men thousands of years before 
their birth. It is this evolution of man's destinies, as 
foreshown in prophecy, that renders the Bible so mar- 
velous, astounding, and trustworthy a book, possessing 
in its own testimony its own divine credentials, and 
proving that none have a right to question its doctrines 
until they have invalidated its authority. 

Physiologists persuade us that they have proved 
that the Caucasian is the highest variety of man, and 
that the descending scale from this is Mongolian, 
American, Malay, Negro. If this be true, does it not 
follow that man came from his Maker's hand as a 
Caucasian rather than a Negro? Surely it is more 
consistent to suppose that man was made in his high- 
est form at first, and that he afterward degenerated 
in his habits and cranial development, than to suppose 
that he improved upon his Creator's workmanship, 
and raised himself from the lowest type to the highest. 
It would be easy to show how the highest might, by 



MAN PRIMITIVE AND DERIVATIVE. 19 

neglect of the means bestowed by providence, have 
descended from the proper standard and model of man. 
Physiology, history, and the sacred scriptures agree 
in showing that human degradation has always result- 
ed from neglecting the knowledge and advantages 
which God bestowed on man for the preservation of 
society in due order, under the influence of industry, 
religion, and law. 

The origin of man, the law, the divine covenant 
with man, and man's incessant failure, all the facts 
and all the prophecies in the Pentateuch, belong more 
or less to the ful/er developments of providence which 
we recognize as history, and we must nullify our own 
knowledge to deny that of Moses ; and far more : we 
must resign our trust in Jehovah's dealings with man 
as his Saviour and his Sanctifier; for to destroy the 
Pentateuch is to destroy the foundation on which 
Christianity, with all our hopes, is built. With such 
interests at stake, we have reason to be in earnest in 
our defense of the credibility of the Hebrew found- 
ling. But to question the authenticity of Moses is 
like endeavoring to prove that God forsook the world 
as soon as he had made it, and has had no intercourse 
with man since his creation. We may agitate the 
question — the result will still be an unavoidable con- 
viction that a written revelation is not less a fact than 
the world we live in. But our object was to show 
that the nature of man has not been gradually evolved 
from an inferior form, and we appeal to the totality 
of history as summed up in the Bible, in proof of our 
position. 

Were the subject exhibited in its physiological bear- 
ings, we should see abundant proof that the creative 
fiat has fixed specific limits within which all creatures 
continue to propagate their kind after their own like- 
ness, so far at least as never to approximate to a new 
order. Distinction is preserved amidst variety ; the 



20 M£N PRIMITIVE AND DERIVATIVE. 

shades of gradation are separate lines ; and however 
near the resemblance between species may be, yet 
there is no mixture. To suppose otherwise were to 
ascribe confusion to the work of omnipotence, and to 
regard nature as a force beyond rule, operating at 
random to an infinite enormity. Those who assert 
that one race of living creatures may be developed 
from another are required first to show us an instance 
of the fact; but let them be careful to avoid mistakes, 
for their business is to contradict the conviction of all 
ages, and to prove that it is absurd to believe that " God 
made the beast of earth after Ids kind, and cattle after 
their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the 
earth after his kind." The greater caution is neces- 
ssary in endeavoring to falsify these words, since those 
who have hitherto attempted it have only so far suc- 
ceeded as to prove that the presumption of man is at 
least indefinite. 

It might be easily demonstrated that as long as man 
has been known to man he has appeared in the same 
general form and proportion as at present, wonderfully 
adapted to his place and occupation on earth ; but it 
is of far more importance to observe that, as a thinking 
being, man was the same when Moses wrote as he is 
now ; and that though fully capable of considering the 
Wonders of creation with a reasonable discernment of 
their Author's power and wisdom, yet the true awa- 
kening and appetite of reason were proved rather in 
demand for spiritual light than speculative knowledge, 
for then, as now, man could not reflect without feeling 
himself a sinner; nor think of God without asking how 
he was to be justified with Him ; nor hope for an im- 
mortality of good without finding an Almighty Saviour. 

Humanity was, at least in this respect, as much de- 
veloped when Job and his friends discoursed concern- 
ing the government of Providence as it is among mod- 
ern philosophers who labor under the disadvantage of 



MAN PRIMITIVE AND DERIVATIVE. 21 

not having received the New Testament; and it must 
be granted that the Hebrew prophets knew the holy 
character of God, and were remarkable for their in- 
sight into coming events, since much that they pre- 
dicted is now visible to our eyes. But if the proph- 
ets with their sublime ideas, Job and his friends with 
their mysterious discussions, and Moses with his au- 
gust record of the verified order of creation, are real- 
ities, we learn that Omnipotence has always operated 
in keeping with the morals of men, and that Provi- 
dence is not the development of a mere physical con- 
trivance, but the direction of a spiritual supremacy 
over beings capable of spiritual instruction by appeals 
to their understandings, and their motives as rational 
agents. 

Man, then, is not a ripening organism, but a peculiar 
being, having relation both to the past and to the future, 
and an interest both in history and prophecy, because 
time, eternity, and man belong to God, who uses them 
all for the manifestation of Himself. Hence there can 
be no bound to man's capacity for intelligence, nor 
limit to his life, since both life and intelligence are 
united in him for the purpose of evincing God himself 
as the Eternal Reason. From this cause it arises that 
all men who have looked upon this world of light, with 
their spiritual eyesight open to perceive its beauties, 
have in all ages exhibited that degree and standard of 
intelligence which reach at once to the highest con- 
clusions of science, and induce a man to join heart 
and soul with Job, Moses, David, and the prophets in 
celebrating the majesty of the Eternal, who in Himself 
gives unity to all the varieties of nature, makes the 
worlds of matter and of minds one universe, and 
claims our confiding trust in His hand, because un- 
ceasing providence is His one continued act. 

From the foregoing and many other considerations, 
both scientific and religious, we shall probably be justi- 



22 MAN PRIMITIVE AND DERIVATIVE. 

fied in preferring to believe the statement that man 
was expressly created in relation to his Maker rather 
than that he was developed from an inferior creature. 
We would not, however, question the fact, that 
Omniscience is at work in all the universe, diffusing 
life and mind among innumerable beings, none of 
which stands alone, and among the minutest of which 
not a feeling is awakened that is indifferent to the 
heart of the Creator. He regards all his works, in 
their infinite totality, with a full knowledge of each 
inscrutable particular. His love is not divided, His 
mercy is over all, because all is His ; but it is through 
man that the unity of nature is revealed, and the 
loving kindness of Omnipotence made manifest. And 
as no other creature on earth is conscious of God's 
love, so if he fail, through ignorant or malicious mo- 
tives, to obey that love, he departs from his right 
place in creation, and bears a curse where he should 
have conveyed blessing. 

Human existence is not an accident — God has a 
purpose in it ; let us, therefore, endeavor to discover 
what belongs to us, and by learning how we are pro- 
vided for, learn also what is demanded on our parts, in 
order to obtain our right position as individual spirits. 

If we may judge from the more recently imported 
specimens of scientific surmise concerning man's deri- 
vation, there appears to be no such great improvement 
in the theory of development, as will serve to account 
either for our hopes or our fears, The mere fact that 
we are conscious beings, that can think of the demands 
of Deity on our consciences, is, however, the only 
omission in the scheme ! Polarization and matter 
being given, make a man, says the physio-theorist. 
There is the difficulty ; the materials may suffice to 
form a body, all we want is the soul ; in short, the 
theory fails in its working, and gives us the man — all 
but himself! 



MAN PRIMITIVE AND DERIVATIVE. 23 

i4 Man is also a child of the warm and shallow parts 
of the sea," says Oken, the logical physio-philosopher, 
(§ 213, Ray Soc. Transl.) " It is possible that man 
has only originated on one spot, and that, indeed, the 
highest mountain in India. It is even possible, that 
only one favorable moment was granted in which men 
could arise. A definite mixture of water, definite 
heat of blood, and definite influence of light, must 
concur to his production ; and this has probably been 
the case only in a certain spot and at a certain time." 
44 The deluge cast up the first men," (Oken, p. 324.) 
44 They were littoral inhabitants, and, without doubt (!), 
carnivorous, as savages still are (?). From whence 
could they have obtained also fruits, cabbage, and tur- 
nips ?" Whence, indeed — ask Moses. The certain 
time and the certain place of theory are the most un- 
certain things in the world, and the assumed definite 
mixtures necessary to make a man are more undefined 
than the man in the moon. But there are two or three 
points in this anthropology which are worthy of remark. 
The author acknowledges the deluge, and derives man 
from the East, and traces him, so to say, to one source. 
Would he have doue so if he had not been compelled, 
in spite of his theory, to yield to the evidences in favor 
of these facts ? 

The philosopher ascribes the production of man to 
sea-mucus, or, to use chemical language, hydrated 
carbon. From this, he asserts, all organized beings 
have originated, and, by self-elevation, issued forth 
into higher organisms. Thus creative will is dis- 
pensed with ; and man, like all the rest of moving 
things, grew up of his own accord, from the infuso- 
rium of a putrid sea-mucus. There stands the word, 
and there, the fact — " Male and female created He 
them." If it could but be proved that there is no 
personal God, and that he did not create male and 
female, this theory would not be half so wonderful ; 



24 MAX PRIMITIVE AND DERIVATIVE. 

but that, with tli3 definite mixture of heat, light, car- 
bon, and water, in some certain time and certain place, 
two of each kind, male and female, of all the myriads 
of animated being, should have sprung up as a natural 
matter of course, and that only once, is very marvelous 
indeed, since we can see no reason why what has 
emerged from the shallow and warm sea should not 
emerge again. Sea-mucus is under as favorable cir- 
cumstances for forming a man as ever, both in the 
West and in the East, or otherwise man and mucus 
could be scarcely existing in the same globe together. 
Whence can the organic have originated but from the 
inorganic ? asks the philosopher again. We reply, 
Could not God create both ? 

It will probably best promote our object, if we look 
back to the more authentic record of our origin, and 
learn our Maker's estimate of our existence. 

The first man — the man of earth, e terra terrains, 
was, in his outward existence, fashioned and con- 
formed with the materials of this objective world, in 
bodily keeping with the order of the elements from 
which he was to derive the sustentation of his physi- 
cal life, and those impressions which should excite in 
his soul ideas and experience. Raised erect from the 
grouud, as if by the hand that formed his body of the 
dust, he stood forth mature and perfect, exquisitely 
organized to be the fit inhabitant of the Paradise pre- 
pared by the Almighty, on purpose to prove the great- 
ness of His goodness to His most august and stupendous 
creature. The spirit of animation, the very breath of 
God, kindled every fibre of his frame, and constituted 
within it a distinct selfhood, a being of thought and 
will, which thus reflected the mind that made it 
capable of perceiving and appreciating Divine pur- 
pose. In self-consciousness man responded to the 
movements of his living heart; within himself he felt 
existence to be a personality. Gradually the life with- 



MAX PRIMITIVE AXD DERIVATIVE. 25 

in him opened the avenues of knowledge, and, as he 
stirred and felt, motion and sensation seemed one with 
himself. As a babe, tenderly nestled by its mother's 
ioving heart, finds every thing around it so thoroughly 
arranged to meet the demands of its awakening mind, 
that nothing jars upon its senses; so man, by degrees, 
awoke to the presence of his prepared place, lapped 
in Paradise, with nothing wanting to the growth of his 
soul in knowledge and bliss. All things were so con- 
sistent with his nature, that surprise entered not 
amidst the expanding harmony of his enjoyments. 
The light, attempered in heaven, touched with the 
gentleness of God's own finger, the fine sensitive 
nerves of vision, even through his sealed eyelids, so 
as to cause them, with an involuntary action, to open 
of themselves, like the petals of a flower, and to ad- 
mit into the soul, as at one draught, the whole para- 
dise of sight. Thus man seemed united to all he saw, 
and, as one that dreams of peaceful glories, the sceues 
around him appeared but as if formed by his own 
spirit. Perfume blended with beauty in the dewy 
radiance, and the varied utterances of love and joy 
from every living thing mingled their music in the 
balmy air, and passed together so sweetly into his soul, 
that they became a world of ideas within him, more 
mighty in their influence, as thoughts, than were the 
things that caused them. Man began to reason, and 
then God met him. and that in such a manner, that he 
needed not to be told who was his Maker. The Almighty 
met man to command him, and to call upon him to 
name every animated thing according to his apprehen- 
sion of its nature. He invested man with authority, 
and imparted to him power to hold dominion over all 
that moved in earth, and air, and sea ; because he 
understood, by converse with Divine Intelligence, 
why and for what ends all were created. Without 
laborious research and elaborated logic, man saw the 



26 MAN PRIMITIVE AND DERIVATIVE. 

meaning of each form and physical attribute, and re- 
quired no anatomy to prove the benevolence of design; 
since every creature expressed, in every action, its 
own happiness, and all nature responded in joy to the 
benediction of God. The power, the will, and the 
pleasure of activity were in man united, in tilling the 
ground and replenishing the fruitful earth with all that 
might be cultivated by his skillful hand, to administer to 
his taste for beauty, or his need for aliment; and it 
was man's appointed business so to direct his knowledge 
of nature and necessity, as to contribute, by his wise 
employment of nature's productiveness, to the wants 
and pleasures of all the sentient creatures over which 
he held dominion. Thus the life of man was actively 
engaged in multiplying blessings, and therefore he felt 
that life was blessed ; he loved to live, because he 
lived in love, and satisfied the demand of every day by 
daily taking fresh fruit from the tree of life, as if from 
the hand of his God and Father. But he still needed 
a reciprocity of affectionate intercourse, and a fellow- 
ship in worship and authority. From his own flesh a 
help was formed for him by the finger of his Maker, 
for God knew that man required more than to reign 
alone over a dumb world, in order to the completion 
of his blessedness ; since finite reason, without a cor- 
responding heart, would need no tempter to turn the 
Garden of Eden into a solitary waste. Jehovah con- 
summated his gifts, and brought to man a being that 
might lean upon his bosom, and with kindred love 
claim to speak with his heart. But human nature 
was intended to be the revelation of Omnipotence, 
and therefore, with all its duties, came also danger, 
and with every good, the possibility of evil. But the 
highest good was the highest test of the will, and 
therefore, with affection, man entered on that trial by 
which he proved himself dependent on God for the 
power of loving with a right spirit. Man chose to 



MAN PRIMITIVE AND DERIVATIVE. 27 

partake with woman of the vain hope of living inde- 
pendently of God for knowledge and for wisdom. He 
loved the best creature that he could love more than 
he loved the Being who gave him that object of his 
heart; and woman wished to have something to confer 
on man besides herself and her love. He forgot that 
he was bound, by the very terms of his existence, to 
hold all his affections in the sanctity of obedience to 
the loftiest love, and she forgot that love was better 
than knowledge and dearer than life. They were 
created under law ; they felt, they thought, they de- 
sired, they acted, they reigned under law; and the 
happiness of their disposition, of their ideas, of their 
actions, proved that the law of their creation and well- 
being was the benevolence and love of the Creator 
toward them, for God had so ordered Paradise, on 
purpose to please and to employ them. But there is 
duty in law, the creature must obey in order to be 
blest. The power imparted to man must be regulated 
by his own will to right ends, he must behave like a 
thinking spirit, and that can only be by limiting his 
actions in voluntary and intelligent obedience to ac- 
knowledged truth. With this necessary condition, the 
exercise of power leads only to the enjoyment of 
present realities, and, with ever-coming hopes, to the 
enlargement of faculty and fuller bliss. The know- 
ledge of facts and objects is but mental chaos, without 
an understanding of the Divine intention in the order 
and plan of nature and Providence; and this intention 
is revealed to us, that we may learn that love is obeyed 
only by being trusted. 

What might have been but for the fall we need not 
ask. Perhaps the words " might be" mean impossibil- 
ity, and whatever is could not have been but as it is. 
At least we know that all events are managed by the 
Might that reconciles all things to himself. We may 
still do what Adam did. He doubtless saw more and 



28 MAN PRIMITIVE AND DERIVATIVE. 

more clearly as he studied the handiwork of God, 
that there is a constant coincidence between the les- 
sons taught by physical order and those taught by 
moral ordinances : because the will of Heaven is ex- 
pressed in both, and that will is alike wise and good. 
But in undue creaturely affection Adam lost sight of 
goodness and wisdom, and yielding to the voice that 
contradicted God, he neglected the first of all duties, 
that of self government, and fondly, and in mere sym- 
pathy, subordinated the lordship of his soul by giving 
to a beauteous creature the whole of his heart, and 
thus converted God's own temple into the house of 
idolatry and sin. We habitually do the very same 
thing. Herein we find proof of our fall, and the pro- 
fundity of that fall. All the qualities which the first 
man possessed are visibly lapsed into disorder, and we 
see and feel them to be so in ourselves and in our as- 
sociates. The fall is a fact in our own experience ; 
we are born into it and can not raise ourselves out of 
it. Still, however, in some sort we retain those char- 
acteristics of mind which must have distinguished the 
first human being. There is sense, but it is abused; 
there is the love of life, but it regards not its source ; 
there is the desire for knowledge, but it is naturally 
a vague curiosity, or, at best, but the love of natural 
science blended with curious doubts of manifest truth ; 
there is the love of exercising power, but instead of 
the fostering dominion of a charitable reason devising 
good for all that it can serve, it is apt to become an 
assumption of a right to rule, so as to make govern- 
ment a tyranny of terror, and all obedience mere eye- 
service; there is the love of sociality and of sex, but 
it is always ready to degenerate into the calculation 
of comforts, the dalliance of fond souls, or the luxuri- 
ance of romance and wantonness. Instead of affianced 
faith, with hopes sure and certain, there is fancy with 
her deluding phantasms, and expectations incompati- 



MFAN PRIMITIVE AXD DERIVATIVE. 29 

ble with Divine government ; instead of wisdom learn- 
ing humbly to work with her own hands in cultivating 
the rooted tribes of earth, while her soul is turned 
heavenwards, there is self-satisfied conceit, seeming 
to see something to laugh at in the distortions of hu- 
manity, and yet wondering at man's folly. Instead 
of a conscience open as light to light, there is cring- 
ing and cowardice, and creeping behind the trees to 
hide from God in the twilight; and instead of a free 
will, refusing to know evil, there is now a crash of 
opposing volitions and desires too frequently devoted 
to works of darkness. But we need not search for 
sin, it is every where — the similitude to God is gone 
from the soul of man. We acknowledge that we see 
his likeness in the moral law, but we do not find it in 
our hearts. If we look at them in the light we dis- 
cern a substitute there which the grand Deceiver 
might have furnished. But, nevertheless, we know 
a way in which the image of God may be indelibly 
restored in true knowledge, righteous activity, sensible 
manifestation, unfailing faith, obedient power, love un- 
feigned, clear conscientiousness, and liberty of will. 

The reception of truth in love is the restoration of 
the perfect man, and God's own spirit is its source. 

We must be conscious of what we need before we 
shall seek for it, and we must know what is essential 
to a right state of mind before we shall discern our 
defects and desire their removal. Let us therefore 
look a little more closely into this subject. 

For the purpose of obtaining a succinct and simple 
view of the prominent peculiarities of our mental and 
moral constitution, it will probably be sufficient to con- 
sider man in relation to his pleasures. In this view 
we must, in fact, include both his desires and his en- 
dowments, since he can desire only what he may be- 
lieve shall contribute, either directly or indirectly, to 
his pleasure ; and he ean attain this end only by such 



30 MAN PRIMITIVE AND DERIVATIVE. 

means as are placed within his power. Thus by 
studying our inclinations and our aims we shall learn 
what is essential to our happiness, and ascertain 
whether we are employing our faculties in a manner 
calculated to secure our ultimate satisfaction. Every 
faculty is associated with its appropriate desire, and is 
exercised with an appropriate pleasure, 

1st. Man is endowed with senses; hence the de- 
sire and the enjoyment of sense. 

2d. Man is enabled to exert himself, and he desires 
to do so, and finds enjoyment in action. 

3d. Man possesses the faculty of conceiving and 
contemplating the mental images of things not present 
to his senses; hence he possesses the desire, and 
experiences the pleasure, of exercising imagination, 
memor}', and fancy. 

4th. Man has intellect, or the power of thinking on 
the nature and property of things in relation to each 
other; hence he desires knowledge, and enjoys re- 
flection and comparison. 

5th. Man is capable of crediting statements beyond 
his actual experience, and he is apt to believe more 
than he can learn through his own senses ; and in be- 
lieving he finds pleasure. 

6th. Man loves certain qualities which he esteems 
amiable ; hence his desire for objects of affection and 
his pleasure in them. 

7th. Man has the capacity of distinguishing good 
from evil in relation to moral law ; he has a con- 
science, in the right state of which he desires to do 
his duty, and in so doing receives pleasure in self- 
approval, and the approbation of God, and the good 
and goodwill of his neighbor. 

Will, in the abstract, may be regarded as charac- 
teristic of consciousness: there is no mind without it. 
As the possibility of any pleasure implies the possi- 
bility of its opposite, pain; so there can be no sense 



MAN PRIMITIVE AND DERIVATIVE. 31 

of things, either agreeable or otherwise, but because 
the willing being, or agent, is correspondingly affected. 
But there is a higher form of will pertaining to rational 
existence, by which we choose, not merely according 
to sensation, but also according to moral conviction. 
We do not always obey our desires, but sometimes 
deny ourselves a pleasure in consideration of results 
that may affect our future well-being; hence it evi- 
dently appears that we possess the power, if willing, 
to exert our faculties either to oppose or to encourage 
any of our natural desires for the purpose of accom- 
plishing some end, in pursuing which all our endow- 
ments are modified, both as regards the dispositions 
and pleasures connected with them. 

Desire, power, and pleasure, imply the existence 
of a selfhood that desires, acts, and is pleased. The 
existence of these faculties implies the love of life, 
and this conducts us to the consideration of immor- 
tality. The selfhood has relation to an outward con- 
sciousness, through the senses, by which images of 
objects are impressed on the mind. Desire, action, 
and pleasure, must of course relate to objects either 
perceived or inferred. We can not see God, but we 
can believe in his existence, and love him too, if we 
feel his benevolence through the many proofs which 
he presents to our senses. The groundwork of all 
thought is objective. Our Maker teaches us by what 
he has actually done for us both in body and in spirit : 
he does not demand our allegiance but on palpable 
evidence and conviction. 

We can in no case see the cause either of action or 
reaction, motion or rest, either mentally or materially. 
We witness only the media and vehicles of power, 
either dynamic or resistant; and whether we study 
physical forces or moral influences, we find that 
objects are alike but signs of spiritual existence ; so 
that all we can know of truth is but inference con- 



32 MAN PRIMITIVE AND DERIVATIVE. 

cerning the relation of things ostensible to things be- 
yond the sphere of our senses, or else but the direct 
communication to our minds of intelligence from some 
being better informed concerning the secrets of crea- 
tion in their union and totality. Reason must either 
infer from effects to causes, or be instructed by reve- 
lation. Belief in God is the end in both cases. By 
inference man forms a notion of Deity according to the 
extent of his own knowledge of nature, but by revela- 
tion he is taught the moral attributes of God, as a being 
causing himself to be known to man in righteousness 
and love forever. 

It will therefore be but consistent and reasonable to 
treat our subject with reference both to natural and 
revealed truths, while still confining our attention, for 
the most part, to man's inherent love of pleasure, and 
the means provided for its gratification. Keeping the 
capacity either for enjoyment or misery always in 
view, we may distribute our thoughts without regard 
to any artificial system ; still, however, preserving, as 
far as possible, throughout our disquisitions, the dis- 
tinction felt by us all between the intellectual, moral, 
and emotional conditions of our nature. 

This plan is a deviation from that indicated by meta- 
physicians, but we ma^', notwithstanding, be able to 
show that it is not the less congruous with what we 
know of ourselves, and with what the Maker of mind 
has condescended to teach us. We would not, how- 
ever, depreciate the labors of those capacious and mas- 
culine intellects that have investigated and expounded 
the science of mind, but would rather freely and thank- 
fully acknowledge our obligation to many of them, who, 
like men of faith and reason, have met infidelity on its 
own ground, and there defeated it, by casting in its 
eyes a new light, and causing it to see the hideous- 
ness of its own features, as if reflected in the bright 
shield of truth. 



CHAPTER II. 

SELFHOOD — SOUL, MIND, SPIRIT 

What is a soul ? It is yourself. Some notorious 
physiologists tell us they can not discover the soul, 
and, according to the best of their judgment, that 
which is moved by the rational will is the same thing 
as that which wills to move. Bones, muscles, nerves, 
bloodvessels, and brain, constitute a thinking and feel- 
ing machine, say they, working on chemical and me 
chanical principles — and that this machine is a man 
when arranged in the form of a wingless biped, and a 
brute when contrived for walking on four feet. Moses 
was not enlightened, like a modern philosopher, by 
feeling his way in the dark. He saw a little further 
into the mysteries of man's existence than these 
physiologists, and certainly concluded, by the divinity 
within him, rather than by inference, that mere 
machinery is not disposed to think of the personal 
character of the Deity ; but that a being that reflects 
upon the past, and pries into the future, with a desire 
to know God, and to resemble him, is really his repre- 
sentative on earth. If man may be in any respect a 
similitude of his Maker, it can only be in his mental 
and moral nature, unless, indeed, the Almighty — pre- 
posterous thought! — be himself a bodily being, and 
nothing more. Of course, no one will deny that 
matter would feel, and think, and worship, if Om- 
nipotence ordained that it should; but then that must 
be a matter of which we can not conceive the ex- 
istence, for it must be a matter with a personal will. 

Without turning to the Bible, we can discern that 
understanding and will, in a moral and religious sense, 
3 



34 SELFHOOD— SOUL, MIICD, SPIRIT. 

can proceed only from God's own direct impression 
of truth on the mind of man. We can know nothing 
but by Divine teaching, the thinking faculty and the 
object of thought being both createdr The appre- 
hension of God as a personal Being, demanding our 
obedience and adoration, is surely not a property of 
matter — adoration is mental conformity to God's wift> 
This power, proceeding from the Creator to the crea- 
ture, and enabling it to think and will with a recog- 
nition of himself, can not be organic. Matter exists, 
iudeed, as a medium for manifesting to us the thoughts 
even of God himself, but this must be to a mind, to a 
being, that thus perceives the purpose and will of the 
Creator, and this being, when conformed to that will 
and purpose by a corresponding will and purpose in 
his own person or individuality, is the image of God in 
as far as any creature can resemble Deity, or reflect 
his character. 

It is the man himself that perceives, thinks, and 
determines; but the power to perceive, think, and 
determine can not be predicated of the body, or any 
part of it, therefore the man himself can not be the 
body, but something occupying and influencing the 
body so as through it to become acquainted with the 
objects of sense. Desire, emotion, intellect, result 
from the operation of the discerning and reasoning 
power in consequence of sensation, which is itself a 
mental perception of bodily impression, and which in- 
duces the percipient principle to act according to its 
own nature. That which perceives is the subject 
of sensation, and therefore can not have been caused 
by sensation. Without the anterior existeuce of an 
agent to receive impressions through the senses, sense 
could not be. Reason thus seems indubitably to de- 
mand our assent to the fact asserted in the common 
langunge of mankind as to the existence of a distinct 
agent as the actuating principle in a living human body. 



SELFHOOD SOUL, MIND, SPIRIT. 35 

But a new kind of rationalism has arisen of late, 
which, while acknowledging the reality of revelation, 
nevertheless refuses to receive as truth any thing 
which can not be demonstrated to the senses. Those 
who addict themselves to the dogmatism of such a 
sensible faith not being able to see, hear, touch, or 
taste the soul, nor to test it by any chemical agents, 
very consistently deny its existence altogether. And 
yet, yielding somewhat to the fashion of belief in 
favor of the Bible as an authoritative document, be- 
cause its historic, internal, and collateral evidences 
amount to a demonstration of its rightful claims to our 
credence, these rational believers have succeeded at 
last in convincing themselves, that in that marvelous 
Book there is no such thing spoken of as a soul or 
spirit irrespective of the body, and therefore they 
conclude that bodily existence, such as we witness, 
is all we are taught by the words spirit and soul as 
applied to man, either in this life or the next. 

It is my anxious desire to found all my metaphys- 
ical opinions upon the Bible, because 1 think this book 
contains an explicit statement of God's mind as regards 
all that is essential for us to believe, in order to our 
everlasting prosperity, both as intellectual and moral 
beings. The sacred volume, indeed, is not constructed 
on philosophical principles, because it is God's word, and 
therefore there is no speculation in its announcements ; 
for God does not propose to theorize on his own work, 
but yet whatever can be proved true in philosophy and 
science must be found in keeping with scriptural 
statements if these are true, since one truth can not 
contradict another. I believe in the truth of revelation 
because I have not been able to discover any thing of a 
demonstrable kind, either in the science of matter or 
of mind, at variance with it, and therefore if I now 
hear of a doctrine like that which asserts the non-ex- 
istence of any thing but what may bo seen, heard, or 



36 SELFHOOD SOUL, MIND, SPIRIT. 

handled, and find that it does not agree with what we 
know of physical, mental, or divine teaching, it is no 
difficult task to determine to what class of productions 
the said doctrine belongs. 

But what does revelation as well as common reason 
announce concerning the soul as a distinct spiritual 
existence? 

There is much dispute about the words spirit and 
matter, but what we want is meaning. Probably all 
men understand by matter something capable of im- 
pressing the senses, something to be estimated on phys- 
ical principles. Now that which thinks and wills can 
not be perceived by our senses, nor have its properties 
and forces tested by physical means. We cannot see 
thought with the eye, like light; we can not cause it to 
travel by a wire, like electricity; it is something more 
subtile than either, but yet it operates on matter, and 
causes it to impress our senses; and thus you, my reader, 
have before you a visible expression of the ideas in my 
mind. But the ideas are not on the paper; you see 
the signs of them, and by the eye of the mind see 
them in your own soul, where they are formed as they 
are in mine, because we are both of us thinking beings. 
We can not now perceive each other by the bodily eye, 
nor could we if we met; we should only see the out- 
ward form of an inward power: because it is not the 
thinking being that is seen, but that which the thinking 
being acts upon. Yet a consciousness of our thoughts 
and desires is not a consciousness of any particular ob- 
ject as present to our senses, for we think of ideas, and 
ideas have no physical existence, and yet they are real 
and potential in their influence on our conduct and 
comfort. Now that which thinks and wills we may call 
spiritual and immaterial, since we find no analogy be- 
tween its nature as experienced by ourselves, and any 
material object. 

Those who deny the existence of immaterial or 



SELFHOOD SOUL, MIND, SPIRIT. 37 

spiritual being are obliged to conclude that the Deity 
Himself is material, and some have daringly asserted 
that they intend this. But we will suppose they are 
using terms in an unusual sense, and that they really 
mean that the matter of a spiritual existence is dif- 
ferent from any of which we have any notion. If so, 
it is manifest that neither we nor they can compre- 
hend what kind of matter they write about. If the 
matter they mean is incorruptible, and immortal, and 
thoughtful per se, then it is not matter in its common 
sense character, but something else, and this something 
may be called spirit, to distinguish it from things that 
are insensible, corruptible, and mortal, or liable to atomic 
change and integral destruction. 

Unless moral law be the same as physical law, there 
must be moral existence as well as physical existence. 
Does not reason every where acknowledge that love to 
God and our neighbor is utterly different from elective 
affinities and the forces that bind materials together? 
Have we no conscience, no response within us to the 
rightfulness of doing unto others as we would that they 
should do to us under similar circumstances? Yes; 
we can will in keeping with an ordinance that is not a 
physical law; we can acknowiedge the benevolence of 
our Maker, and consent to His demand upon us to act 
in keeping with His love. 

Physical law is an ordinance that has nothing to do 
with obedience ; it is irresistible, and yet capable of 
being altered by Divine determination, so that the visi- 
ble universe might cease to be what it is ; but moral 
law is unalterable, because it expresses the character 
of God himself, and therefore we may iufer that the 
beings to whom it applies are also indestructible ; but 
of course only because Divine will constitutes them 
responsive with respect to the Divine attributes — 
" That which is born of the Spirit is spirit." Spiritual 
laws are addressed to spiritual beings, and we canuot 



38 SELFHOOD SOUL, MIND. SPIRIT. 

be otherwise than of the nature of spirits if we are en- 
abled so to think and will as to desire truly to adore the 
Deity, who is a Spirit; for surely intelligent worship 
).s but as the conscious response of an understanding 
soul bowing through all its being in the felt glory of 
Jehovah's presence. It is mind apprehending the terri- 
ble beauty of holiness, and looking, in the consciousness 
of dependence, for Almighty sustentation, because it 
feels itself created on purpose to receive its own suffi- 
ciency only from the fullness of its God. 

If we believe the Bible we believe that our Maker 
calls men spiritual beings. It is true that, in the sa- 
cred scriptures, from which alone we can learn any- 
thing concerning existence beyond sense, the word 
spirit (nvevfjia) is used in several significations, but 
still it is certainly often employed to designate the 
power or attribute of a distinct conscious, active agent, 
and by implication, therefore, to designate that agent 
itself. God is a Spirit — not the energy of a being, but 
energetic being itself. The spirits of just men made 
perfect are perfect men, and so with regard to beings 
of every order to whom the word spirit is applied. It 
expresses both the mode or state of an existence, and 
the existence itself, because mode and state can not 
be predicated of that which does not exist. 

A great degree of confusion exists with regard to 
the use of the terms mind, soul, and spirit, which 
probably might be obviated by considering the word 
soul as significant of the selfhood, which is exhibited 
by will and understanding, these together being called 
mind, or the soul, in relation to emotion and percep- 
tion ; the term spirit being restricted to designate the 
attribute, character, or nature of the mind. Thus 
man is proved to be a psychical being, or soul, by his 
mental faculties ; and these prove themselves, by the 
mode of their operation and their motives, to be essen- 
tually spiritual, in distinction from physical. 



SELFHOOD SOUL, MIND, SPIRIT. 39 

It is not for us to determine whether a created spirit 
is necessarily conjoined with some kind of body or 
not. Conjunction is not unity. We neither know 
what spirit nor what body is. The elements with 
which we are familiar are but different forms of force 
according to the fiat of Omnipotent will, and, for 
aught we can say, spirits may always embody their 
wills by expressing them in appropriate forces, so as 
to be sensibly seen, heard, and felt, by beings in a like 
order of existence. We need not, however, speculate 
curiously concerning this subject, since it is enough 
for us that, whether in the body or out of the body, 
it is the expressed purpose of our God to provide 
means for all the happiness which, as confiding crea- 
tures, we can require. There is a spiritual body, we 
are told, and the idea of a body is necessary, in order 
to convey to our conceptions the idea of action, because 
a bodily form is essential to all we know of outward 
operation ; nor can we imagine mental influence but 
in relation to a body; but yet it is the influence or 
power of one thing upon another, agent and subject, 
and therefore they can not be the same things. 

But the term soul (ipvxf})' as employed in the New 
Testament, is most peculiarly significant of a conscious 
individuality. Though it is often translated life, mind, 
and heart, in accommodation to the English idiom, it 
has always a personal property and power, and it is 
evident that it was understood by the Apostolic writ- 
ers to mean something besides bodily life, or any thing 
pertaining to existence limited to earth, since it is 
mentioned in reference to a continuance of being after 
the death of the body. Thus our Lord says, " Fear 
not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill 
the soul. 1 ' (Matt. x. 26.) And his beloved disciple 
uses these emphatic words: "I saw under the altar 
the souls of them that were slain for the word of God." 
(Rev. vi. 9.) •« I saw the souls of them that were be- 



40 SELFHOOD SOUL. MIND, SPIRIT. 

headed, " dec. (Rev. xx. 4.) Here we can not mis- 
take the intention of the writer, since, whether the 
language be figurative or literal, it is clearly meant to 
state that those spoken of were veritable men, not- 
withstanding they had died. 

The word soul may almost invariably be understood 
to signify a selfhood, and therefore we so often find 
that the personal pronoun may be substituted for it. 
"We have a striking instance of this in relation to the 
resurrection of our Lord, as stated in Acts ii. 31. — 
" His soul was not left in hades, neither did his flesh 
see corruption." Here is a broad distinction between 
the actual personal being and the body : and as if the 
more powerfully to convey a sense of this distinction, 
we find the word signifying soul is not in the original 
of this verse, and the passage really stands thus : — 
4i He (David) seeing this before, spake of the resur- 
rection of Christ, that He was not left in hades." 
That /and my soul are equivalent terras, is seen in the 
Divine announcement, — M Behold my servant, whom 
/ have chosen ; my beloved, in whom my soul is well 
pleased.'' To deny oneself for the sake of following 
Christ is the same as to forego one's own soul in order 
to save it, as we find, on comparing Matt. xvi. 24, with 
Mark viii. 34, 35. In short, great part of the Bible 
might be quoted to show that the soul and the self are 
the same, according to inspired language, as when the 
Son of the Highest, groaning under His sense of 
man's iniquity, said, " My soul is exceeding sorrowful, 
even unto death." 

Can we suppose that Paul could employ the follow- 
ing phrases without believing in his own existence, 
independent of the, corpus humilitatis of which he com- 
plained : " I desire to depart, which is far better." 
M We are confident and willing rather to be absent from 
the body and to be present with the Lord.'' Probamus 
magis peregrinari e corpora et incolen a Domino, 



SELFHOOD SOUL, MIND, SPIRIT. 41 

(Griesbach.) " Lord Jesus, receive ray spirit," said the 
dying proto-martyr, when he committed himself to his 
Saviour for eternity, and the thought next before death 
was becoming a resister of sin and a follower of the 
crucified One — " Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. 
And when he had said this, he fell asleep." Fell 
asleep ; is it not somewhat strange that this gentle and 
frequent phrase, which so sweetly expresses the peace- 
ful departure of a believer, should have led to the con- 
clusion that the Christian soul continues without wake- 
fulness until the end of time ? Strange, that because 
the man of faith closes his eyelids upon the light of 
earth and reposes as confidently in the arms of his God 
as a weary child upon the bosom of its mother, there- 
fore the soul awakes not to the light of heaven, although 
the very scripture in which the phrase is placed also 
tells us that the Lord, to whom the martyr had com- 
mitted his being, was seen by him in spirit at the right 
hand of God, and w T ith God's glory, in that heaven to 
which he looked. 

A name* famous in the subtleties of logic is associ- 
ated with the defense of this notion, but it appears as if 
it had been with a total abandonment of his accustomed 
acumen, and in a desperate hope of modifying the ob- 
jections of materialists to the broad and unaccommo- 
dating language of revelation. It is a grief of soul to 
see the benevolent efforts of a lordly spirit so com- 
pletely defeated by the extravagance of his ready ac- 
commodation to those spiritual paupers who so sturdily 
ask charity because they have no faith. Not being able 
to discover the least glimmering of a reason to infer 
from the words of the Bible, or its spirit, that man dies 
with his body, the gifted writer referred to, met the 
smiling skeptic halfway, with a surmise that as the body 
seemed so essential to action in this world, it might be 
the appointment of Omnipotent wisdom to keep the 
* Archbishop Whately. 



42 SELFHOOD SOUL, MIXD, SPIRIT. 

soul in a sound sleep, somewhere, until the resurrec- 
tion, when it w r ould find itself suitably provided with a 
machinery to work with. But this purposeless slumber 
of the soul served only to excite the greater ridicule of 
the unbelieving and profane while deepening the sorrow 
of the devout; for the notion seemed to imply that the 
Maker of all worlds being deficient in materials to em- 
ploy human and departed spirits, laid them by in dor- 
mant idleness until a new organization could be conve- 
niently arranged for their use, which might be after 
indefinite ages had rolled over their transmuted dust. 

It is said, " Them also who sleep in Jesus will God 
bring with him." In keeping with this language is that 
most ancient and unfulfilled prophecy, " Behold, the 
Lord cometh with the myriads of his saints." " The 
Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee." 
(Zech. xiv. 5.) Now if they come, they must exist; 
but do they come as resuscitated frameworks and nerve 
systems ? No, unless we are deluded with a nominal 
revelation, there is another mode of being besides the 
visible and material, and in that mode they come. 

In insisting on the spiritual existence of man I would 
desire to guard against conveying the notion that ma- 
terial existence is contemptible. That God is the 
maker of both souls and bodies, is sufficient to give 
dignity to both, and that the fact that every being but 
the Infinite must be localized, is sufficient to prove that 
human beings must be corporeally accommodated with 
media of action and manifestation in whatever sphere 
they may dwell. 

Those w T ho doubt that the soul may perceive out of 
the body, should inform themselves how and why the 
soul perceives in the body. What relation has an ob- 
ject to the sensation which it produces? There is no 
sensation but in a mind : there is no other necessity for 
the connection between an image on the retina and the 
idea which we call sight, than that it is the ordinary 



SELFHOOD SOUL, MIND, SPIRIT. 43 

law of our constitution while in the body. It is the 
soul that sees, according to this law, but it sometimes 
happens that the soul does not see according to this 
law, but to some other still more inscrutable. Thus in 
certain states of mind the soul does not perceive the 
idea uf the object really before the eye, but some other 
idea suggested by that object. This often happens in 
delirium and mental derangement. Therefore it is 
manifest that the mind itself makes the idea in such 
cases. And, indeed, it always produces its own ideas, 
in so far as there is no idea but by an act of the mind. 
Thus to confine ourselves to sight, by way of illustra- 
tion, images are constantly impinged on the retina, but 
we do not discriminate between them unless we attend 
to them. We must look at them with the mind's eye, 
or we discern nothing ; as we find, if we are busy in 
thought instead of minding what is about us, we run 
against a post and beg its pardon. We might always 
live in such abstraction but for the demands of the 
body, and, in some diseases, this is a permanent state. 
Sensation is but one mode of the soul with regard to 
this objecftve world, and we know that there is at least 
one other mode of perceiving — namely, memory, which 
includes imagination, and by the exercise of w T hich we 
realize our past experience and make it available knowl- 
edge. 

We recall ideas in a great measure at will, and w T e 
reason on them, and strongly feel them too, without 
using our eyes, or ears, or tactual organs. Ideas are 
sometimes vivid enough in meditative minds to obscure 
all present objects by their brightness. We actually 
reproduce sensation by pure mental conception and 
association, and that so powerfully as that emotion also 
is excited even to a greater degree than when the 
sensation was first experienced. Thus I have often 
known a person so disgusted at the remembrance of a 
disagreeable medicine as not only to seem to taste it. 



44 SELFHOOD SOUL, MIND, SPIRIT. 

but really to suffer a repetition of all its effects. We 
do, then, perceive objects again without their presence, 
and ideas are compounded and multiplied also in our 
minds, without the use of the senses, so that we may- 
be capable of thinking out of the body, so far as the 
continuance of mere sensation is concerned. We may 
have thoughts even if we may not have sensations out 
of this body, and thought is quite enough to make us 
either happy or miserable, according to the habits and 
convictions of our souls. But as sensation is a mode 
of the soul, and is subject to variations according to the 
mental states, there appears to be no reason, in the 
philosophy of the subject, why sensations also may not 
be experienced in other modes than any with which 
we are familiar in this world, since those we expe- 
rience are but mental states and adaptations of our 
minds in relation to our present life. 

Brown, Butler, and other metaphysicians distinguish 
between outward and inward affections, as if sensation 
were not mental as well as memory, pain, and desire. 
In dreams, are our affections outward or inward 1 I 
dream, for instance, that I receive a letter, atid actually 
seem to read it with deep interest; I feel the strongest 
emotion, and on waking I remember many of the 
sentences, just as I thought I saw them in my dream. 
Now these sentences were not produced by memory 
in the act of dreaming, for they had no evident con- 
nection with any thing previously in the mind ; they 
were fabricated by the mind without the use of the 
senses, and without extraneous impression. There- 
fore the so-called external and internal affections have 
the same source. 

Some persons always dream ; others never. Are 
those that do not dream justified in denying that others 
do ? No ; the testimony is too strong to be resisted. 
But supposing there was but one man in the world 
who could affirm that he had dreams, ought we to 



SELFHOOD— SOUL, MIND, SPIRIT. 45 

deny the fact simply on the ground that we could not 
understand it, and it did not accord with our experi- 
ence? 

Exceptions are not contradictions, but they prove 
the existence of other laws than those in common 
operation. St. Paul informs us of facts in his experi- 
ence, by which we learn that a man may enjoy a 
wondrously higher mode of perception than ordinary : 
whether he were in the body or out of it he indeed 
knew not; but yet he in rapture entered Paradise, 
and in unutterable words received a superabundance 
of revelations. This was at least an exalted and 
superior state of mind, something above ordinary sen- 
sation — a vast but sudden development of perceptive 
power, concerning the reality of which we ought no 
more to doubt, than when an honest person relates to 
us a dream. We can no more account for the dream 
than we can for the heavenly ecstasy, and, under 
certain circumstances, the one might be as common as 
the other. There are, then, various modes of mental 
sensation and perception, so unlike each other, that 
they can Scarcely be compared, and therefore we 
have no reason to question the possibility of still other 
modes of mind in other conditions of that which is mind, 
since it is constituted to experience an incalculable 
variety in its emotions and its perceptions, under the 
government of the Power whose resources are infi- 
nite. 

The doctrines of the Bible are in direct contradic- 
tion to much that goes under the name of philosophy. 
The former teaches us, that the universe is controlled 
by spiritual agencies or beings ; the latter, that mental 
and moral existence is the result of physical arrange- 
ments, aud consequently, that action, affection, feeling, 
faculty, reason, and religion, are properties of matter. 
On this system the cessation of cerebral function is 
the death of the thinking being. Death is the annihi- 



46 SELFHOOD SOUL, KiKD, SPIRIT. 

• 
lation of the mind, says the materialist: it is departure 
to a life far better than this, says the Christian. 

What is materiality, but the result of certain im- 
material forces co-operating to produce resistance, 
form, and whatever property any thing may possess 
in relation to any other thing ? As a natural body 
exists by the laws of matter, or on the principles of a 
material manifestation in obedience to the creative will, 
so a spiritual body exists on other principles, or in 
keeping with another system of law r s or forces in obe- 
dience to the same will. Now we see and feel that 
there is a material body, but how do we know that 
there is a spiritual body ? For the very same reason 
that we know the one, we know the other also. As 
we infer from their effects that there are physical forces, 
although not perceptible through our senses, so we 
infer that there are spiritual forces, because their 
effects are demonstrated to our reason. In short, the 
physical properties of things indicate the existence of 
forces w T hich are immaterial; and the material world 
itself is a proof that there is a world of spirits, since 
matter can exist only as the result of will and purpose, 
in keeping with beings that think. Omnipotence con- 
stitutes every agency. A spiritual body or system is 
but another mode of accommodating the willing being. 
We know that our senses and our mental faculties are 
limited and restrained by the organization through 
which they now act. There are forces at work that 
are interferences with sensation, will, and thought. 
The mind may be withdrawn from these interferences, 
so as to act only in connection with agencies that may 
facilitate action. The medium required is always and 
every where present. The universe consists of forces 
mutually influencing each other, and all forces are 
subservient to spiritual influences. 

The medium by which life and thought are brought 
into action is probably the same in all worlds. It is 



SELFHOOD SOUL, MIND, SPIRIT. 47 

not air, nor heat, nor light, nor electricity, nor magnet- 
ism, but something by which these become what they 
are in relation to matter in general. There is some- 
thing universal, the law of which is polarity. It per- 
vades all other things, and produces a tendency to 
union among individuals similarly constituted or relat- 
ed to each other with regard to negative or positive 
state. It is not subject to gravitation and cohesion, 
but is fitted at once to the demands of the spirit; and 
in it the spirit that thinks and wills may perhaps be 
as really and substantially accommodated and evinced 
in selfhood and sociality as in the palpable materiality 
of this lowlier body ; for the one mode of existence as 
well as the other results from spiritual forces put in 
operation by the will of God. Even now there is a 
spiritual body as well as a natural body belonging to 
each of us ; and as the consciousness of our existence 
in human form depends- not on our continued con- 
sciousness of this flesh and blood, so, if we were at 
once to depart from this frame of things, we doubtless 
should still feel a bodily existence, since our spirits 
would exist in a system of their own. by which we 
should be altogether human in form, affection, and 
faculty, and as capable as now, or more capable, of 
reciprocity and intercourse with other spiritual beings. 
As far as reasoning by analogy can prove any thing, 
it has been proved by Butler and others, that death 
can have no influence upon any thing belonging to 
ourselves or our souls ; it expends its power upon the 
body. But if we depart from this body and this world, 
we must pass into some other state, in which some 
other mode of soul equivalent, or even superior to sen- 
sation and perception may be developed. We go to 
some place, and place implies objects as well as souls ; 
for objects and souls are created for each other. 
Some mansion is prepared for us. He who ordered 
our entrance and accommodation here, arranges for 



48 SELFHOOD SOUL, MIND, SPIRIT. 

our entrance and accommodation elsewhere ; and as 
it is by an operation of the Almighty that we perceive 
and understand now, so we believe that, hereafter, 
He will not leave us without means of discerning his 
wisdom and obeying his will. Before we conclude 
that the soul can be injured by being merely separat- 
ed from the body, we must prove that the soul is not 
provided for by its Maker, but cast adrift upon eter- 
nity without a home, divested of all faculty of appropri- 
ation or of rest. 

Millions have asked what is the nature of the soul, 
and have received no answer except from death. We 
know not what any thing is ; but we become acquaint- 
ed, through sensation, with certain properties of mat- 
ter by their impressions upon ourselves, and thus dis- 
tinguish one thing from another; and this is the 
extent of our demonstrated knowledge. But whoever 
attends to the operations of his own mind, and consid- 
ers the marvels of his own consciousness in remem- 
bering past ideas, in comparing, in reasoning, in fore- 
sight, and in all that mind has done, and can do, is 
learning the nature of a soul. Had Adam lived till 
now, among his fallen progeny, his soul would have 
been still young and undeveloped. Earth and time 
are not large enough for the unfolding of a soul to the 
full. We look for the forest in the acorn ; we look 
for the universe and its Maker in the soul. Eternity 
must manifest it, or rather that light, which is God, 
must so fill the profundity within us, to reveal eternity 
unto us before we can know the vastness of our own 
being. In the soul lie hidden powers which are like 
the living seeds that the Almighty cast with his own 
hand into the new-made earth, which have not yet 
produced all their fruits. The dew of ages beyond 
ages, the eternal sunshine, the tempering of seasons 
by the breath of Jehovah forever, are requisite for the 
germination and mature development of all those ca- 



SELFHOOD SOUL, MIND, SPIRIT. 49 

pabilities, for bliss or bane which reside within our- 
selves, and can not die. 

The salvation of the soul, or the perfect health and 
safety of the man, is the object we are directed to seek 
in the revelation of God ; and the redemption of the 
body, from the claim and rightful dominion of death 
and the grave, is insured in that of the soul, — the full 
price was paid for both by the Just for the unjust ; 
therefore God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, 
and to every seed his own body. 

The man who has passed into the life beyond de- 
cease or severance, will never be destitute of the 
means which may be necessary to complete the man- 
ifestation of his character, whether it be good or bad, 
malignant or benevolent. The glorified body of our 
risen Lord is the type and representative, before all 
heaven, of the body proper to all those who through 
faith in Him obtain the restoration of the Divine like- 
ness in their moral nature. The sanctification of the 
man, or his separation in soal to the obedience of 
righteousness by love, includes the sanctification of all 
that may pertain to the body or medium of his spirit. 
But it is necessary for us always to remember, that 
we are not saved by any thing derived from earthly 
parentage — it is the birth by the Spirit of God that 
gives the title to the heavenly inheritance. Hence the 
difference between the first Adam, who was made a 
living soul, and the second Adam, who is the quicken- 
ing spirit. The former had no spirit of life to commu- 
nicate. The man of the soul (1 Cor. ii. 14) can not 
even perceive the things of the Spirit of God, but this 
power of discernment is imparted in the Divine regen- 
eration effected by the second Adam, the Lord from 
heaven, who is the life-giving Spirit. In their resur- 
rection-life, true believers are to possess bodies in 
keeping with this spirit, and thus to resemble the ce- 
lestial source of their new existence. Blessed beyond 
4 



50 SELFHOOD SOUL, MIND, SPIRIT. 

utterance must they be who feel within them the ger- 
minating power of this God-life; but unless both the 
soul and the body are brought under the commenced 
dominion of this quickening spirit, even here, it is 
manifestly a woful delusion to call ourselves Chris- 
tians ; therefore, let every one who nameth the name of 
Christ depart from iniquity. 

Every believer has his own reasons for his hopes, 
and of course those who receive the Scriptures as 
their creed have no doubt about the immortality of the 
soul. But no one fully appreciates the life that is 
brought to light in the Gospel, unless he desires to 
possess it as a state of being totally exempt from all 
liability to departure from the source of holiness and 
truth. Arguments why we should believe in the im- 
mortality of the soul are wasted on those who do not 
know why they should wish for it; nevertheless we 
will proceed in the next chapter to say a few words on 
the subject. 



CHAPTER III. 

IMMORTALITY. 

Death is every where ; but man can not die. He 
exists forever, and therefore he must think, and ag- 
onize to think; and it is because he is capable of an 
endless succession of ideas with an incessant con- 
sciousness of his own selfhood, that the desire for life 
becomes intensified into an instinct for immortality in 
man. Reason is born dogmatical, and she asserts her 
nobility by demanding a life suited to her nature ; she 
discourses with intelligence, and draws an argument 
for her deathlessness from the fact that to love truth 
is to love existence for its highest purposes, since all 
the truth she learns so far reveals God, and therefore 
prompts the hope of enjoying a perpetuity of supply 
from the fountain of wisdom and goodness. But to 
suppose a desire for acquaintance with the wisdom of 
God, is to suppose a desire also for his goodness ; and 
to feel this is to have in the heart that right love 
which believes itself incapable of death ; to look for a 
continuance of life beyond the grave from any other 
motive, is to expect existence, only because we expect 
a retribution and an eternal vengeance suited to the 
rebellion of a fallen and malignant spirit. All our ideas 
concerning a futurity of living, thinking, and acting are 
mere phantoms seen in the dark, without revelation ; 
and yet there is no reasonableness in reasoning, unless 
a man seek something more than daily amusement, 
occupation, and aliment; if he knows what he wants, 
he will seek for eternal life, and truth, and good, to 
live upon forever ; since, whether we think of the right 
means or not, what we wish for is happiness without 



52 IMMORTALITY. 

death. Would you tell a man he is to perish to-mor- 
row, and forever, and then exhort him to thank God ? 
He can not be truly grateful to his Maker without the 
hope of an imperishable existence as an irrevocable 
boon. But there is really no possibility of finding any 
distinct evidence in favor of such a hope, except in the 
Bible ; for however ready men may be to promise 
themselves what they wish, they only deceive them- 
selves with their desires, and rest only in the BAiada- 
manthine dreams of natural heathenism, if they found 
not their hopes upon what God offers. 

It is of small importance to determine when crea- 
tion began ; but it is of vast importance that neither 
reason nor revelation will allow us to believe that what 
is can ever cease to be. Form may alter, and the 
elements may be newly arranged ; but omnipotence 
would be opposed to omniscience, could there be an- 
nihilation. The material world has existed an indefi- 
nite period, but we, as individuals, are but just now 
created, and we are intent to know where and why 
we are ; and, in endeavoring to learn, we find that 
nothing of the past is lost to us, since what has been 
still is, and eternity is before us, to throw all its light 
into our being. An immortality of mind can be con- 
ferred only for mental purposes, — to know and to Jove, 
to will and to act. 

Not a particle of even the insensate world can be 
altered in its nature as a center of forces, but yet it 
continues not everlastingly without change ; it must be 
relatively altered, although in its affinities the same, 
and so it must be with the soul. Every atom of every 
block of granite has been otherwise situated than it is, 
and it is in process of being put in new relations to the 
other elements, for nothing has yet reached the ulti- 
matum of its existence. The progress must be on- 
ward, without limit, in subserviency to the Mind, from 
which all power, motive, and purpose originate. God 



IMMORTALITY* 53 

is the eternal cause of eternal consequences. Each 
atom of each element must answer its end, and so 
must we, and that according to our nature. Atoms 
act according to physical laws; beings of thought and 
will, according to the state of thought and will, in re- 
lation to spiritual laws. The subtile and unsearchable 
mind of man, although, as mind, unalterable, must 
yet be exposed to mutations from without, and in the 
exercise of its affinities, according to orderly appoint- 
ments yet to be evolved from the hand of the Almigh- 
ty. But whatever results toward us in the eternity 
to come, must still be in keeping with the nature of 
our minds, as evinced in reason and affection ; for the 
soul, like everything else, is formed on fixed principles 
in relation to the rest of creation, and therefore sub- 
jected to laws which can not be abolished, because 
the unchangeable is their source, and His glory their 
fulfillment. 

Morality and religion are based upon immortality; 
and not only so, but the emotions proper to moral and 
religious conduct necessarily indicate deathlessness. In 
short, we can not entertain a notion of right and wrong, 
without believing in a future state, or a life in which 
good or evil dispositions find their results. We are 
bound to right conduct, because the laws of heaven are 
the laws of eternity, and we can not escape the judg- 
ment already against us if we neglect our salvation. 
If nominal death, the death of the body, were the end 
of man's being, he might dismiss the claims of con- 
science from his soul ; he w^ould then have nothing to 
mind, nothing to concern himself about but to take his 
ease as long as it lasted, and to seize upon the accom- 
modations of this world of promise and provision to the 
best of his ability. Might would then be right. No 
one could blame another for trying with all his heart 
to have his own way in spite of his neighbor's claim, 
since he would have no account to render to any one 



54 IMMORTALITY. 

who did not demand it before his death, for in that 
event his Maker would forever absolve him from all 
his obligations. Those who do not look forward to a 
life beyond the grave really act on this unaccountable 
principle — " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we 
die." And they would be quite justified in so doing, 
if something did not say within them — you can not die 
— your God has to do with you forever. 

Indifference to results is all the ethics of ignorance. 
The profanum vulgus of all conditions are those who, 
practically believing in death as their finale, endeavor 
to pass their lives in desperate disregard of the coming 
event; and lest it should abbreviate their guilty pleas- 
ure before its time, even by its shadow, they resolve 
to look another way. Thus desperado is the becoming 
name of every consummate criminal, and the dark 
souls that crowd our jails have usually advanced in 
vice without the visible fear of any judgment higher 
than that which here condemns them. They are ad- 
versaries to society, perhaps because society has been 
adverse to them, and has not convinced them that 
heaven reigns in righteousness forever. They have 
not been trained on principle to subdue impulse. No 
revealing light has entered the chambers of imagery 
to show them their own characters : they have not 
seen the hideousness of guilt, boldly raising an un- 
blushing brow in the presence of the Holy One : they 
have not been taught, or in their habits they have been 
oblivious, that darkness holds no secrets from God. 
The doctrines of existence as to power, purpose, and 
eternity, they have not listened to : the light that 
awakens conscience has not fallen on their spirits. 
Eternal life, therefore, has not dwelt in their thoughts ; 
and thus men have been prepared for murder as only 
a transitory matter, forgetting that the soul of the 
slain and of the wronged will call for vengeance from 
beneath the throne of God, and, in a world without 



IMMORTALITY. 55 

mistakes, will meet the murderer and the oppressor 
face to face, and say, " Thou art the man." 

Repentance is not demanded, but because immor- 
tality is revealed and a day of judgment appointed 
for the world, the certainty of which is known to all 
who have received the hostages of God and looked into 
the evidence — Christ is risen. If indeed there be any 
virtue, it can not be without results ; it must be pro- 
ductive of present happiness, either in the enjoy- 
ment of what is passing or in the hope of what 
is to come ; it must give a warrant of future bliss, 
not from a possibility of merit, but simply from the 
assurance which a mind rightly engaged can not but 
feel that it is walking in the way that wisdom ap- 
points, and hence in a path, that, though it may not 
be naturally pleasant in itself, is yet evidently condu- 
cive to a perpetuity of peace and joy, because God has 
ordained it as a way to an end. There is, however, 
no virtue in merely pleasing oneself — the word means 
nothing unless it signifies a state of mind with regard 
to Heaven, a state that is blessed, because it is an obe- 
dience to some law acknowledged by the mind as good 
in itself; for both the motive and the joy of virtue con- 
sist in conscious fulfillment of duty. But duty depends 
on relationship between the mind that yields obedience 
in love, and the mind that commands in love. Without 
love there is neither authority nor duty. Therefore 
there is always reason in moral law, and every man 
who can apprehend it is bound to submit to it, or to 
suffer in his conscience, because he sees it to be per- 
fectly good ; and he could not be required, as a rational 
being, to obey, except in the faith and affiance of a 
soul satisfied that righteousness in God is one with 
benevolence. But where is the reasonableness, where 
the righteousness, where the benevolence, in the Om- 
nipotent, if He grant only a short lease of life and en- 
joyment to His reasoning and confiding creature that 



55 IMMOltTALlTY. 

in love submits to His will ? Does not the Almighty 
himself, in man's brief earthly life, inspire him with 
gratitude only because he is also inspired with a hope 
that his present happiness, in the emotions awakened 
by God, is but a foretaste and earnest of an unending 
abundance from the same source? 

Surely there are contradictions and inconsistencies 
innumerable in the short-lease philosophy, without re- 
newal, but none in the Christian Testament. Here 
Jehovah is seen as the constant rewarder of those that 
diligently seek Him, and those who thus seek, feel 
that, because they come to God as the Everlasting 
Father, in Him they possess not merely a quiet life 
for a few years, while obedience may be possible, 
and then death, but rather an eternal inheritance of 
active and happy service. "Within them stirs a sublimer 
spirit, witnessing to their consciousness that, as they 
have a right to call God Father, because they love him 
for His love, they are not thus born as heirs of death 
and unquickened dust, but to an immortality of honor 
in the faithful exercise of those endowments bestowed 
b} 7 Him, and by Him sustained in motive and power for 
evermore, and by the possession of which they know 
themselves as sons of God. Any thing short of an 
eternal inheritance in God and His universe, reason 
itself, when roused up to its vocation convinces us 
must be thoroughly incompatible with the idea of 
Divine existence, as related to man, and manifested in 
man ; and if the Deity were not thus related and thus 
manifested, man would have had no capacity to believe 
in the existence of God. But he does so believe as 
soon as he is capable of thinking religiously and conse- 
cutively, therefore he must act and expect accordingly, 
with the consciousness of being either at one with the 
Almighty, or else in will opposed to Him, and that for- 
ever. Now if a man feel assured that the Omnipotent 
owns and loves him eternally, he can not faint under 



IMMORTALITY. 57 

His hand. He must have seen the Saviour — God, and 
therefore be capable of incessantly acquiring strength, 
from the touch of the Divinity by which he lives, to 
bear all things well, because his heroism is religion. 
Hence he sees that trial is but the path of glory ; he 
sees the end already. The spirit that moves him to 
obedience and to hope is the spirit that confers per- 
fection and eternal freedom, and therefore he looks 
forward undauntedly, expecting, without doubt, to be 
mighty in thought and in action, but incapable of suffer- 
ing when he shall enter into that world and state of life 
where there can be nothing to oppose a will submissive 
to Heaven. 

The immortality of the soul was implied in all the 
commandments of God under the Mosaic economy, 
and in the history of the patriarchs, and in all the trials 
of men's spirits from the beginning, because there was 
no sufficient end to be answered by the Divine per- 
mission and providence as regarded man, unless in 
sustaining him in the hope of a future and enlarged 
existence. Hence the great cloud of witnesses ad- 
duced by Paul (Heb. xi.) as having acted under the 
power of faith with respect to the better resurrection, 
believing as they did in God as the rewarder of his 
worshipers. And the translation of Enoch and of 
Elijah was the visible regeneration of the body itself 
under the act of the Almighty's will, by which man 
was fitted in a moment to exchange earth for heaven, 
as a spiritual being accommodated to a physical uni- 
verse by a mediate body, capable of change according 
to the demands of the inhabiting spirit and the place 
in which it was required to dwell. There was always 
sufficient evidence on earth to induce the hope of 
another life, and plain facts asserted, to all who could 
credit honest testimony, the reasonableness of looking 
beyond this world for the fruition of a soul set on find- 
ing its Maker. 



58 IMMORTALITY. 

The reasonableness of such a belief may be shown 
not only by reference to the evidences which revelation 
bears in itself, but also from the natural constitution of 
things, and from the unavoidable inferences of reason 
concerning the Creator's purpose, m evinced in the 
existence of mind and matter. But I will briefly sum 
up the arguments that prevail in my own mind. 

1st. Human immortality may be inferred because a 
mind that is constituted to look forward to futurity 
with religious hope, and for the satisfaction of rational 
desire, can not have answered the purpose for which 
it was created without the fulfillment of that hope and 
that desire. He who satisfies the desire of every 
living thing, has not yet satisfied this desire. This 
argument, however, can have no weight but with those 
who experience the expressed state of mind. Those 
who are in the pitiable condition of being without this 
hope and this desire must be living without any con- 
sciousness of Divine existence, and they need to be 
roused into spiritual vitality and vigilance before they 
can listen to arguments for eternal life. This is the 
work of God, and He is engaged in it by constraining 
men to reason from their experience, and their hopes, 
and their fears ; for even doubt is an argument for 
immortality, since it implies the question of a mind that 
can not rest in the expectation of nothingness, but 
believes only in an ever-coming to-morrow. 

2d. If there be no future or continued existence, 
then the Maker of man has made him capable and 
desirous of learning more of His wisdom, from His 
works, and yet has left him without any code of laws 
to govern his moral being, or any instruction sufficient 
to guide his inquiries concerning his future destiny ; 
for moral laws are not binding on creatures destined 
to perish, and that doctrine is only deceptive which 
points to the light of Heaven, and then leaves the soul 
to be quenched in everlasting darkness. 



IMMORTALITY. 59 

3d. If God has not left man without revelation, then 
man is immortal, because the only intelligence which 
man has received with any indication of its being re- 
vealed from God, is that which informs him of eternal 
safety as a reward, and eternal damage as a punish- 
ment, as the necessary consequence, from the essen- 
tial order of moral government. 

4th. As what we learn concerning our Maker from 
his works and his word, begets in all devout minds a 
happy reliance upon him and an adoring love, because 
of the cumulative proofs thus afforded of his benevo- 
lence and wisdom ; and as this reliance and this love 
are in relation to a being who can not cease to be ador- 
able, there would be an incongruity of God's own ma- 
king between the power to adore and the object of 
adoration, if man were not constituted, when actuated 
by indwelling truth, with a ceaseless capacity of wor- 
shiping and loving his Creator. But to suppose in- 
congruity in God is to deny him. 

5th. Without immortality, man would be a total con- 
tradiction to every idea of Deity; and all earthly men- 
tal existence would be useless, because, although it 
seems to serve the purpose of manifesting God, it only 
serves, in fact, to excite hopes, to end in disappoint- 
ment, and to afford a taste of life which yet conveys 
to the spirit only death. The insect at the fountain 
may sip and sustain its powers, to fulfill the purposes 
of its little being; but man must drink destruction at 
the source and streams of life, since his eagerness for 
intelligence and enjoyment leads only to his being lost 
amid the flood that flows from beneath the throne of 
God, unless he be immortal. 

These arguments are mutually resolvable, the one 
into the other — and, after all, merely express an intu- 
itive conviction that, because we are what we are, we 
must be something greater hereafter, and that we 
must continue to exist, since we can not suppose our 



60 IMMORTALITY. 

present state to be other than as a stage in our prog- 
ress toward the full purpose of our existence. 

If we do not believe in our future being, w T e must 
believe in something still more difficult to apprehend, 
for to expect continued life is according to our habit 
and our sense of probability; but not to believe this, 
we must believe in annihilation, but this we can not, 
because we find no ground on which to proceed to 
such a conclusion, since there is no instance of such an 
event in all our knowledge, and therefore there can be 
no possibility of our supposing the Omnipotent engaged 
in blotting out his own work. We will not, however, 
enter on the argument by analogy, since that is ex- 
haustless, and has been abundantly expounded. The 
preceding are the reasons w 7 hich determine my own 
convictions, and they appear to me most consonant 
with the doctrines of the Bible and with man's moral 
consciousness. In short, I believe the soul is immor- 
tal, merely because it is a soul; but without revelation 
there could not be a sufficient reason for a man's be- 
lieving in immortality, since without that he would 
not have known enough of himself. What the heath- 
en philosophers wanted in order to satisfy them, or at 
least to impart to them a hope full of immortality, was 
a true knowledge of God and of man. A mythology 
without an omnipotent Deity is a system without a sun — 
there is no cause of light or life in it — there is no being 
as the source and center of existence, no mind interested 
in all other minds, no unity in intelligence, no bond of 
reason, no parent of spirits to whom they might come 
to dissipate their doubts. What w r as needed was a 
Logos to demonstrate that the divinity w T as not a mul- 
titude of conflicting attributes, which men had imag- 
ined and adored as distinct deities, but that God was 
one, who, reconciling all things to himself, came forth 
to show himself as the Father of our spirits. When 
God was seen as love manifest in humanity, man was 






IMMORTALITY. 61 

visibly immortal. It is in vain to reason of life everlast- 
ing without a demonstration of its cause, and that was 
never seen, except in as far as the Almighty made 
himself known as the immediate friend of man. In 
the book of God we thus behold him. 

In the early ages of our race, the tradition of God's 
pledge to man as the conquerer of him who originated 
death was clearly taught. This we see in the religion 
of Egypt, and in all the old nations of the earth. Of 
this tradition, immortality was, of course, an essential 
part. The unity of the Divine nature, though so soon 
concealed in vulgar symbols, was a doctrine associated 
ever with the idea of immortality ; and the deathless- 
ness of the soul was never doubted until the unity of 
the divine nature was lost sight of. But wherever a 
glimmering of this one light was seen, there the notion 
of immortality began also to arise, and that not as a 
gross continuance of life through mysterious metem- 
psychoses in earthly forms, but as the progress of 
a veritable spiritual being advancing in life on the 
principles of justice and of love; to be happy in the 
knowledge of God. or in the retribution that visited a 
rebellious soul, left with a disordered will to its own 
eternal misery. 

There is much said by religious writers concerning 
the difference between a natural or necessary immor- 
tality and a derived immortality. Let us understand 
our own words. What God wills, that is nature — what 
he does, that is necessary ; and he does what he wills. 
If, then, he wills that man should be immortal, man's 
immortality is natural and necessary. All that the 
creature possesses is, of course by gift. God has im- 
mortality, but he has it to bestow : " the gift of God is 
eternal life by Jesus Christ." Such is the scriptural 
view of the matter. Immortality is, then, confer- 
red ; but is it conferred on all men ? We find that 
some persons who are readv implicitly to submit to the 



62 IMMORTALITY. 

doctrines of that established authority, the Bible, have, 
notwithstanding, come to the conclusion that the em- 
phatic death so frequently mentioned in that book means 
annihilation, or return to nothingness, in contradistinc- 
tion to the life obtained by the atonement. It is not the 
purpose of this volume to discuss the difficulties of 
theology or to expound the doctrines of the Gospel, 
but yet a few observations, on a question which is now 
disturbing not a few pious spirits, may here be not 
inaptly considered. For my own part, I see no more 
reason to believe in immortality for myself than for any 
other man. I have no reason to suppose the free gift of 
the Lord of life to be the monopoly of any class. Yet, as 
the authority of the Scriptures is incontestable, we are 
bound to forego our conclusions if therein we clearly 
find the doctrine we deny. But is the notion of anni- 
hilation derived from the Bible ? We wot not. The 
word, as well as the thought, belongs to Epicurus, who 
invented it, in contradiction and despite of his own 
theory of the self-existent eternity of matter; and one 
who knew not the Scripture nor the power of God 
might easily so contradict himself. 

The word perish, and other forms of expression of 
similar import, frequently occur in the New Testa- 
ment; but if we look into their meaning as interpreted 
by usage and by the relation in which they stand, we 
shall find them in no respect favorable to the idea which 
some minds entertain of them. Without pretending 
to erudition any one may see the force of the few Greek 
words translated -perish in the New Testament. First, 
there is airodvijOKG) ; this is usually applied to death, 
in the ordinary sense, as in that passage where it is 
said, " In due time Christ died" — he was not annihi- 
lated. Next there is arroXXviii, which means to be 
lost. He came to save that which ivas lost ; the word is 
used also in the case of the woman whose piece of 
money was lost — this was not annihilated. The same 



IMMORTALITY. 63 

word is employed by St. Peter, when he states that the 
world at the deluge, being overflowed with water, 
perished — it is not annihilated. But perhaps it would 
seem to signify more when hypothetical!}- employed, 
as by St. Paul, when he says, " Then they also 
which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished ;*' but 
the verse before explains his idea of perished : ;t If 
Christ be not raised your faith is vain : ye are yet in your 
sins." To be, and continue to be, with all the weight 
of unatoned sinfulness, is to be unjustified by a risen 
Saviour. There is a word, Karaodsipo), which, being 
in one place translated perished utterly, might seem to 
mean annihilation, if any did, but we find it signifies 
only, shall become thoroughly corrupt ; and the same 
word is applied to men of abandoned disposition, as if 
to intimate their utter departure from all excellence. 
But to proceed further would be a needless waste of 
time and patience ; it is enough to observe, that wher- 
ever the word perish occurs, it expresses a state of 
something that exists, and therefore can not mean an- 
nihilation. And so with regard to the word rendered 
destruction, perdition, and so forth — it indicates, in 
every instance, condemnation, as of something perni- 
cious, perverse, or frustrating right purpose, as in waste 
or the misapplication of means ; and when limited to 
the body, as it often is, it signifies dissolution, as oppos- 
ed to its edification. "We may then fairly conclude, 
that there is no word in the New Testament which 
must mean annihilation in the strict sense — for in fact, 
it implies a contradiction in terms — a production of 
nothingness. 

Death is the negation of life, say you ? True, but 
what is life in the scriptural sense ? " This is life 
eternal, to know thee, the only true God, and Jesus 
Christ, whom thou hast sent." Death, spiritually con- 
sidered, is the opposite of this life; that is, to be igno- 
rant of the true God is eternal death — a death, such as 



04 IMMORTALITY. 

a man without faith must feel ; a state, the reverse of 
that for which the breath of God first inspired the heart 
of Adam. Destruction is not the contrary to creation, 
but to the right use of existence ; and damnation is not 
merely condemnation, but danger and damage, as op- 
posed to salvation, or health and safety. Those who 
contend so literally for the true significance of death, 
ought to conclude that the grand serpent w T as no de- 
ceiver when he said, " You shall not surely die." The 
prohibition had been enforced with the penalty — " In 
the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely 
die ;" as if to show that disobedience is death, and that 
the proper life of a reasonable being is forfeited by the 
breach of Divine law ; the moral vitality, the likeness 
of God is departed, and as a mirror without light is no 
longer a mirror, notwithstanding its substantial exist- 
ence, so the human soul is dead to its purpose if it re- 
flect not the glory of God. In this true and full sense, 
the busy people of this world are living in a deadly 
dormancy — "Awake, thou that steepest, and arise from 
the dead, and Christ shall give thee light" (Eph. v. 14.) 
Life and death, then, in Scripture language, are used 
not in respect to creation and its contrary, annihilation, 
but with regard to our happiness, as rational and vol- 
untary agents. Life is a great fact, death is a great 
fact, but life from the dead is the great fact. If it be 
the purpose of the faithful and ever-living Creator 
ultimately to annihilate some portion of mankind, why 
is there a resurrection both of the just and of the un- 
just? " By man came death, by man came also the 
resurrection from the dead. As in Adam all die, so in 
Christ shall all be made alive." We are not to limit 
these words to suit our whims of interpretation ; the 
life is as extensive as the death, the quickening spirit 
is vaster than the living soul, and has abolished the 
last enemy. The price is paid for the ransom of all, 
and its value must be testified. " We trust in the liv- 



IMMORTALITY. DD 

ing God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of 
those that believe." 1 Tim. iv. 10. 

Of course, the declaration of our Lord, that God is 
the God of the living, and not of the dead, and that all 
live unto Him, will be a sufficient argument with those 
who believe the record. But is there not an indispu- 
table reasonableness in regarding man as the property 
of God. and that man, as God's, can not cease to exist 
in relation to his Maker ? The authoritative announce- 
ment and natural argument with which our Lord met 
those Jewish materialists, the Sadducees, is as plain a 
statement of man's necessary immortality as words 
can furnish. (Luke xx. 27-38.) The children of this 
world, that is, all men, are put in contrast with those 
of the anastasis, or future state, which therefore refers 
to all; and as it is in keeping with the condition of 
bodily mortality, that the race of man should be replen- ■ 
ished and perpetuated in this world by marriage, so it 
is in keeping with the coming condition of life to be 
without the power of multiplication because without 
the capability of dying. They can not die any more : 
the body died, and that was all that could die. As it 
is consistent with Divine ordinance that human souls 
should enter on that state of existence, so it is but 
congruous that they should henceforth be " on a par 
with the angels" in regard to their immortality. 

The idea expressed in the existence of a tree may, 
perhaps, be expressed by any tree of its kind : yet it 
can be expressed only to a mind, because it originates 
in a mind, it is the living manifestation of a design, 
from its embryo in the seed to its full expansion : but 
the idea of a mind, as a whole, can be expressed only 
to itself, and therefore only by its continued existence, 
as a being having memory and desire. Material or 
compound things exist for the sake of minds, but minds 
themselves exist with especial reference to the attri- 
butes of Deity, since minds alone are capable of good 



(56 IMMORTALITY. 

or evil. If a mind be not indestructible, it must be a 
compound of elements that may go to form some other 
thing, just as the carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, which 
form the plant now before me, may be resolved, and 
become the aliment and ingredients of other living or 
dead beings. But one mind or soul can not be a part 
of another. Hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, answer a thou- 
sand purposes, and exist in a thousand combinations ; 
but mind exists individually only, and with a simple 
unity of purpose. It is a mind, and can exist only as 
a mind, that is, to be conscious, or what is the same 
thing, to perceive and will. The existence of any 
thing is the expression of God's purpose in that thing ; 
an element answers its end, as the element of some 
other thing, but a mind answers no purpose but as a 
conscious being — in perception and will it fulfills the 
'purpose of its creation, and it is thus, and thus only, 
related to its Maker. Now the intention of the Omnis- 
cient with regard to any being is expressed in the na- 
ture of that being, but to intend annihilation is really to 
have no intention, since there can be no purpose in 
that which is not; God can have no relation to non-ex- 
istence, and therefore the annihilation of a human soul 
is an unimaginable event. He is not the God of the 
dead, but of the living ; for all live unto Him. 

Is there to be an eternal tradition of the Divine 
glory, as manifested in the annihilation of beings 
brought into existence by Divine energy ? Does 
reason teach us that it would be an appropriate dem- 
onstration of God's power, as the creator of light, to 
extinguish the sun, and blot it out forever ? And is 
the soul of any man a lesser light, to be forgotten of its 
Maker, or to be spoken of in angelic story as a thing 
that was ? That must be an insane charity that would 
distrust the judgment of God, and think it impossible 
for the Almighty to prove His benevolence, without 
annihilating those whom He created. Our experience 



IMMORTALITY. 67 

does not speak of such a Father in heaven. Know, O 
man of tenderness and terror, that perfect love casts 
out fear, and that thy Maker has more charity than 
thy small heart can hold. All the love in the infinite 
universe is but as the breathing of its Maker over it. 
The full utterance of His heart you can not know, 
without inhabiting eternity in union with Himself. 
Not until you so dwell, and so live, shall you be able 
to fathom the abyss, and see how love is there. It is 
in vengeance, but still it is the vengeance of love — love 
that wills that all men should be saved, and that proves 
He will have mercy rather than any sacrifice but that 
of self-devotedness to the recovery of the lost. Yet 
let us not deceive ourselves by our habit of catching 
sounds instead of sense. The figures of speech em- 
ployed in the Holy Volume are not like the poetic or- 
naments of Corinthian discourse, but veritable illus- 
trations of truth, and therefore who can doubt that 
these words " the place where their worm dieth not, 
and their fire is not quenched," — are meant to express 
a perpetuity of pain existing there ? Is Divine jus- 
tice revenge ? We can answer this bold question 
without denying the eternal condemnation of the wick- 
ed and impenitent; but we must enter into the modes 
of the spiritual world, before we shall be able to ap- 
prehend either the darkness of hell or the light of 
heaven. This we plainly perceive — the seeking of 
glory and immortality in God insures eternal life in the 
fullest sense, because it is consistent with His will and 
nature that he should be the everlasting source of 
blessedness to all creatures in a state of soul to receive 
from His fullness with the acknowledgment of his 
favor. 

I hope always to be able to join in the prayer of the 
Liturgy — " That it may please Thee to have mercy 
upon all men:" God willeth not the death of a sin- 
ner; but in order to the possibility of a remission of 



68 IMMORTALITY. 

the Divine sentence, that banishes a soul from light, 
it is necessary that there should be a change of mind ; 
for while malignity continues, hell endures. The soul 
that wills not to be holy denies that God is good, and 
can not have forgiveness, either in this world or in 
that to come, but is in the danger of eternal condem- 
nation. But it is the business of theologians to pro- 
pound and adjust whatever difficulties they may dis- 
cover in the divine Scriptures ; yet we dare not enter- 
tain any interpretations at variance with the character 
of Jesus. In him alone God is manifest. We know 
nothing of holiness, nothing of divine love, and nothing 
of justice, but as seen in Him. He came to show how 
God was just, and yet a Saviour. He told his most be- 
loved disciple that he knew not what spirit prevailed 
in his heart, when he would have called down fire 
from Heaven to devour those who rejected Him ; and 
he tells us all, that he came not to destroy men but 
to save : still it is nevertheless certain that to reject 
His salvation, as the cure for sin, is to continue under 
the dominion of evil, and that is itself anathema ma- 
ranatha. 

Ceasing to breathe this common air is not itself 
alone death. Men are accustomed to call it so be- 
cause it is that part of mortality that most strikes the 
eye ; but death itself is what sin gets as the wages for 
its every day's work — a deadliness of heart, a state 
of affection excluding God. Those who keep the 
saying of Christ, or obey His teaching, alone live truly 
and in a godly sense ; for, as He says, they can not 
see death, because they are in spirit one with him 
who is the resurrection and the life. To feel under 
the eternal burthen of unforgiven sin, without a hope 
of deliverance, because without a disposition to receive 
regenerative life as from the blood of the Saviour's 
heart, is death, and all the proper purposes of being 
are then lost in the immortality of torment belonging 



IMMORTALITY. 69 

to a mind distrustful of its God. Even now we feel 
that to reflect on the bare fact of immortal existence 
without a consciousness of God's love is intolerably 
awful; what, then, must it be to have all our faculties 
open to the everlasting reality of having voluntarily 
rejected mercy on the only terms on which it can be 
offered by the Holy and Omnipotent Author of our 
being? 



CHAPTER IV. 

MAN IN RELATION TO HIS MAKER. 

Were not deathlessness a felt fact, there would be 
no motive for writing or reading a volume like this, 
which has been commenced, and it is hoped will be com- 
pleted, with the conviction that both the writer and the 
reader have an everlasting futurity which must be in- 
fluenced by present mental engagements and the nature 
of the will to which we yield obedience. 

Qui obdormierunt non perierunt. Because man is im- 
mortal, and the awakening up from death will be with 
a restoration of the past to the spirit, in as far as all 
intelligence and the final destiny must grow out of 
remembrance, we have good reason for earnestness 
whether we set ourselves to meditate upon the means 
of self improvement, or would rouse other minds to 
think of the purposes of life and thought. 

Man is the only creature on earth that meditates. 
He alone treasures ideas, compares them with each 
other, and reasons concerning what he may expect 
from what he has experienced. Hope and fear look 
beyond the horizon of earth, and every exercise of in- 
tellect influences the tendency of our affections and our 
faith, either by extending our acquaintance with good- 
ness, with freedom, and with truth; or by binding our 
souls more closely with the fetters of error and of false- 
hood. These, like siren sisters, meet us smilingly 
every day and unless we are fortified by the virtue of an 
indwelling and uncreated light, we must be deceiv- 
ed by their pleasant songs, and soothed into a slumber 
from which we shall awake only to find ourselves bound 
(vith grave-clothes, and buried deep in the marble dark- 



MAN IN RELATION TO HIS MAKER. 71 

ness of a tomb which can be penetrated only by that 
Divine voice which said, " Lazarus, come forth." 

We must be taught. By whom ? By our Maker. 
He alone is capable of instructing us in the truth, since 
He made it and possesses it, and He alone knows what 
we need, and how we can bear theimpartation of knowl- 
edge. The Almighty must make enjoyment safe. All 
our business on earth is to be educated both feelingly 
and intellectually, and God has filled the earth with 
objects from which we are to learn the Divine will, 
and think of the eternal relation of that will to ourselves. 
His great facts are before us, but unhappily men are 
rather disposed to learn of one another than of the All- 
wise ; consequently the world abounds with deception, 
and life is apt to become a lie, and history a romance. 
Thus education may be either good or bad, merely 
human and delusive, or divine and determinately ex- 
cellent. What is education ? It is every thing that 
influences the mind, and it includes the consideration 
of all circumstances and all affections. Its means are 
those of reason, the knowledge both of good and of evil, 
pain and pleasure, the sympathy of mind with mind, 
and any thing by which a soul may be induced to de- 
sire and to determine for itself as an associate spirit in 
God's company of intelligences. The end of education 
in its highest sense is to form habits of mental fellow- 
ship, and to beget love after the celestial mode of feeling 
and thinking. To ascertain how a human being should 
be trained, it is therefore necessary to inquire what are 
his capacities, and what are their objects — w T hat are the 
soul's appetites, and what has God provided for them ? 
We need not puzzle ourselves with refined disquisi- 
tions on the nature of the mind, since it is enough for 
us to know that every variety in moral character is 
simply a variety in the state of our will with regard to 
objects of sense, and that no improvement can be 
effected in the moral aspect of any being but by 



72 MAN IN RELATION TO HIS MAKER. 

increasing love for what is absolutely good, while teach- 
ing it properly to appreciate what is good, relatively 
considered. 

The will is the spring of action, but its character is 
determined by the nature of the affections, for what 
we desire is what we love — and, therefore, unless the 
affections be rectified, the understanding remains in 
darkness. We labor in vain to be learned, unless we 
also aim at being wise. But wisdom is not acquired 
by dint of study — it is the gift of God to a spirit, that 
kindles into earnestness by a desire duly to fulfill the 
sublime purposes of existence, humbly, yet boldly, 
comes before his God with all the burden of his being, 
and seeks to sustain himself upon the unupbraiding 
Giver of all good. 

Here we pause as if in the twilight, on the edge of 
a precipice, from which a boundless ocean stretches 
before us. The infinite heavens reflected in the deep 
oppress us with their inscrutable vastness. We feel 
how vain is our desire to fathom the profundity which 
surrounds us, and we are glad, throughout our souls, 
when a star gleams forth amidst the purple gloom to 
assure us that the Maker of all worlds is our friend, 
and wishes us to behold the glory of his boundless 
dwelling-place, lit up by his own hand to accommodate 
his creatures. Here, with light upon our brow, we 
may stand and ask, What is good ? And cheerfully, 
and without doubt we answer Light. Why ? Because 
we can enjoy it without fear. There is liberty in light, 
and it seems to call on us to exercise our faculties to 
their fullest extent, with the understanding that wher- 
ever the Almighty throws a sunbeam or a ray of star- 
light, there the way is safe and holy, and open to us. 
We may travel as far as we can in any direction 
indicated by the luminous footsteps of the Creator, since 
he has illuminated all his works to attract our attention 
to the truths, which through them he would convey to 



MAN IN RELATION TO HIS MAKER. 73 

us. Nature is the shadow of divinity, and both are 
manifested by the same light. Why do we enjoy light ? 
Because it is opposed to doubt as well as to darkness, 
and it penetrates our being with a sense of beneficence, 
and the reality of our Creator's good-will toward us, 
appealing to our hearts from heaven to draw our desires 
thitherward. As long as we see light, or hear of it we 
do not feel forsaken. God is light ! As surely as the 
universe exists in pervading glory, as if folded in the 
embrace of God, so surely does the power by which 
we gaze into heaven, with its countless realms of light 
beaming around us, speak to us of eternal love. O 
God, I believe in thy goodness, for it is over all thy 
works. Blot out the sin of my doubt, says the convinced 
soul ; I had feared I was alone and forgotten, and 
doomed to tangible darkness for ever, because I had 
not seen and felt that the light which clasps this diurnal 
world so tenderly, was the revealer of thy love. But 
now I know the everlasting truth is to be ceaselessly 
opening before me, like worlds evolved from worlds 
at the touch of thy finger, and in the breath of thy 
mouth, which is life. It is good to live in light — Deus 
lux est, et in eo tenebrae non sunt ullce. 

But the enlightened mind is humbled, and would 
say — How dare I look up rejoicingly when the eye of 
the Holy Searcher of hearts is visibly upon me ! He 
sees through the depth of darkness in my soul; but he 
sees also that it is to be enlightened that I dare look 
up. I open my eyes that light may enter — I come to 
be reproved — I come openly before the open heavens 
to call upon Omniscience to supply my exigencies, and 
save me; I come ashamed and silent, yet with words 
heard by the ear of God. He listens to my uttered 
soul — search, purify, lead me, O thou Way, Truth, 
Life. I dread the darkness in myself, and I would 
escape into light — and now I see life and immortality 
brought to light by the revealing Word. That re- 



74 MAN IN RELATION TO HIS MAKER. 

moves all restraint, and bids me go on eternally in peace 
and hope and thankfulness, necause gratitude and joy- 
are the properties of those who believe in the faithful- 
ness of the Creator, and desire heartily ever to obey 
the love that has revealed itself as always ready to 
bless the soul that trusts it. He will not forsake the 
work of his own hands. 

Beautiful colors, forms and faces, speak to me re- 
sponsively. My soul goes out to seek for objects on 
which to express my love, and I meet a face to smile 
on me with a happy recognition of my heart, and in 
confidence and joy our loving thoughts become prayers 
in the presence of the Majesty that filleth heaven and 
earth. And my little child knows that I love him, al- 
though never told the fact in words — deeds have re- 
vealed it. He intuitively perceives and understands 
love ; for he is constituted to need, expect, and believe 
it, and therefore he takes my hand, and calls me 
Father, and trusts me to guide him home through the 
darkness. O my God ! this is thy mode of teaching 
— may we never forget thy instruction, but praise thee 
in thought and in action ; let our thoughts be actions 
and our actions thoughts, because thou hast manifested 
thy goodness in life, in light, and in love. 

There is a disposition in every reasonable soul to 
inquire into causes and consequences. To be pleased, 
we know not why and care not wherefore, is animal 
enjoyment, mere instinct, the working of a conscious- 
ness that can not ask for a greater good, because it 
knows nothing of purpose — asking no questions, it can 
get no answers. 

Whatever comports with the orderly advancement 
of our being as endowed with spiritual life, w T hatever 
tends to enlarge the sphere of our intelligence and fill 
it with divine light, whatever improves our affections 
and causes intellect to pursue the truth in love, is good, 
and all else is evil. Thus in a summary manner we 



MAX IX RELATION TO HTS MAKER. 75 

arrive at our conclusion — whatever is fitted by our 
Maker to the improvement of our moral life, our 
understandings, and our feelings, is good, and that 
alone, because it is the will of God toward us as the 
lawgiver and rewarder. 

Good education includes appropriate enjoyment, and 
whatever opposes this is in the nature of sin, and 
death, and condemnation; but obedience to the will of 
Heaven is safety, and health, and life, and bliss. The 
will of God is good for man, because it alone is truth, 
and truth alone is the end and satisfaction of reason. 
If a man, in his madness and wickedness, seem to 
enjoy evil deeds' and erroneous thoughts, it is only be- 
cause he is perversely ignorant of goodness and truth, 
and so in love with the false that his affections are 
awry and unreasonable. The perversion of his heart 
sets him altogether beside his proper place and pur- 
pose. It is of the very nature of his soul to be governed 
by the object of his love ; but he is apt to embrace a 
demon in every creature of his desire, and to wander 
in a desert without rest, and without light, and without 
fellowship, startled and frenzied by the glaring hideous- 
ness of his own thoughts, unless some mind, having 
faith in the faithfulness of Jehovah, the Creator, the 
Saviour, meet him boldly in the spirit of that Lord, 
and take him by the hand, commanding him to repent, 
believe and obey, because God is the proprietor of 
souls. It is manifest that such a one must be convinced 
of his being thoroughly wrong, both as regards his will 
and his understanding, before he can be set right. 
There is no way of accomplishing this but by showing 
him he may trust you, and this he can not do without 
some proof of your love for him, and a better proof 
you can not give than by opening before him the books 
of God — creation and revelation; in other words, show 
him plainly, and to the best of your ability, what you 
know of the true nature of things in relation both to 






76 MAN IN RELATION TO HIS MAKER. 

him and to yourself. Show him that God is his provi- 
dence and yours forever. But you will only prove 
yourself a willful and conceited bungler, unless you 
really sympathize with sinners as a sinner with a new 
heart. Then do not be afraid — Faith will remove the 
mountain. Believe you work with the power of God, 
and you will find that power is nothing but intention, 
and intention is action in the Omnipotent, and he 
means what you desire — salvation, therefore be strong 
in Him who is unfailing. 

Above all things, do not be afraid of finding the 
handiwork of the Almighty in nature at variance with 
the word of His covenant with man, as expressed in 
the Bible. But do not take a step without His book. 
He does not contradict Himself, and therefore creation 
is nothing but a consecutive indication of his wisdom, 
power, and love, to minds capable of appreciating the 
language in which He has thus written His attributes. 
Because they regard not the works of the Lord, nor the 
operation of his hands, he shall destroy them and not 
build them up. — Ps. xxviii. 5. 

All nature, physical and spiritual, is a theology to 
enlightened reason; but yet, for a perverted soul, in 
the profundity of its ignorance, to look for the revela- 
tion of life and immortality in the elements of earth, is 
to look for the living among the dead. Earth would 
be but the grave of our hopes, but for Him who spake 
with Mary at the sepulcher concerning the ascension 
to his Father and our Father. The Lord is risen, 
and our life is hid with Him ; and through Him alone 
shall we find it. Yet, "without Him was not any 
thing made that was made" consequently we may 
wisely worship and glorify Him while endeavoring to 
investigate and apply to our improvement some of the 
great facts of existence, and the interests of our natu- 
ral relationships to each other as alike the creatures of 
His goodness. 



MAN IN RELATION TO HIS MAKER. 77 

Every mind has its select wonders, but existence it- 
self is the grand mystery to all of us. It points from 
eternity to eternity, from the unbeginning to the un- 
ending. Man is the only being on earth that recog- 
nizes this mystery ; none but he thinks, and there- 
fore if there be any desigu in the creation of the 
human mind, the perception of this sublime subject 
must be intended for some end in relation to the well- 
being of that mind. As far as we can at present con- 
ceive, this end is only to direct us to a self-existent, 
all-productive Being, who intends to make Himself 
known to us, and therefore confers on us a disposition 
to inquire after Him, and in keeping with this dispo- 
sition, and as necessaiy to its fulfillment, He imparts 
to us a desire for an existence never to terminate. 
Thus, in meditating on creation, thoughts will follow 
thoughts in higher and higher series, until man, from 
his intellectual elevation, gazing into the boundlessness 
that surrounds him, finds no rest for his spirit but 
upon the bosom of the Eternal. 

The appreciation of our existence as intelligences 
related to the Everlasting is, then, the basis of all be- 
coming effort to attain whatever belongs to the true 
dignity of man. If we know not our nobility, we shall 
not behave nobly. If we feel not our constituted ca- 
pacity for greatness, we shall not desire to be great. 
If, in the strivings of our souls toward the light, we 
do not recognize our fitness for fellowship with heaven, 
we shall shrink back, and clothe ourselves fruitlessly 
in darkness, and, losing sight of the eternity in which 
we really live, shall in our misery find no time for 
mental improvement and moral progress. We may 
talk of life and enjoyment in our gloom, but it will be 
with a mortal taint upon our spirits, and our gayety 
will be like the delirium of persons smitten with the 
plague, turning the sounds of lamentation and the signs 
of death into laughter and madness. It is, indeed, but 



18 MAN L\ r RELATION TO HIS MAKER. 

too prevalently true that we are so busy in watching 
the phantasmagoria of successive fancies, that we 
rather seem to dream than to realize the objects that 
surround us. Even while we gaze, delusion takes the 
place of sight, and when we would seize what ap- 
pears so substantial and so pleasing, we destroy even 
the shadow at which we grasp. 

It is not until some unselfish real love, like a spirit 
from heaven, takes possession of our hearts, that we 
obtain the full and inmost consciousness of our individ- 
uality. In the fixed attachment of our souls with the 
feeling of an everlasting affinity to some other being, 
we begin to doubt of death by recognizing the true 
purpose of life, and in the ceaseless nature of love, 
with its possibilities of agony and bliss, we experience 
the full weight and burden of the awful mystery com- 
prehended in the fact that we are and must be. We 
may long for knowledge, we may long for power, but 
it is love alone that appropriates and employs intelli- 
gence and energy, and until this felt capacity of loving 
becomes as one with our life, we find all teachings hut 
as the play of sunshine and shadow on a troubled stream. 

When we acquire this new kind of consciousness, 
our existence is no longer instinctive, imitative, sym- 
pathetic, physiological, and reflex, but spiritual, and in 
felt relation with the Divinity who originates all things 
but for the purpose of expressing himself as love, that 
we may trust him as our sufficient good. Then we 
feel no longer little and limited, but capable of becoming 
expansive, vast, immovable, eternal, real as the heavens, 
and formed to regard the universe as a creation suited 
to ourselves, to elicit admiration, and satisfy our re- 
search, while awakening love within us as the response 
of our spirits to our God. Until this godlike animation 
enters into man, his morality, philosophy, and religion 
seem but as the speculations of vanity instead of the 
visions of truth, coming close in upon the soul like the 



MAJt IX RELATION TO HIS MAKER. i'J 

revelation of Heaven, still obscure to us because of its 
intolerable glory. Incomprehensible, thou must sustain 
us ; thou must satisfy us from thyself with thy knowl- 
edge and thy charity. O Light, thou must illumine 
us, though now we look and are blind ; soften thy glory 
to our vision, that we may see and worship. 

By our aspirations we are heirs of the Everlasting, 
for we feel, when brought to reflect on our capacities 
and requirements, and to set our hearts upon attaining 
truth, that our fellowship with creatures is not enough 
for us ; since they can not comprehend us nor com- 
pletely sympathize with us, being able neither to look 
back upon the strugglings of our secret past, nor forward 
to our coming necessities, they can neither rectify our 
wishes nor supply our wants. They can explain noth- 
ing of the mysteries we would solve, they can only 
respond to us by questions like our own — "Whence are 
we and why ? The Being who made us thus largely 
necessitous, dependent, and inquisitive, must have 
made us for himself; and he must reveal himself in all 
his fullness as personally bound to us forever, as our 
originator and our end, in order that reason, looking 
abroad on his illuminated worlds, should be able suffi- 
ciently to hope, sufficiently to believe, sufficiently to 
love. It is the Infinite in power, the Infinite in love, 
the Infinite in will, the Infinite in means, that can alone 
fill us with ideas large enough to satisfy the longings 
of our souls after the good, the beautiful, the true, the 
immortal ; for it is not an indefinite notion, but a grow- 
ing idea which possesses the soul that seeks satisfaction 
in seeking to understand the relation of the Self-exist- 
ent to his creature, man. 

Since He has given us the understanding and the 
will to look to Him, it must be his intention to supply 
us out of his exuberance ; he can not have directed 
our desires by his promises, in order to disappoint us; 
but rather that he may bestow more and more abun- 



80 MAN IN RELATION TO HIS MAKER. 

dantly at each advance of our spirits toward Himself, 
in dependence upon his hand and thus on forever, 
world without end ; for every good hope is a prophecy 
fulfilled already in the divine plan and purpose of our 
being. All things consist — nothing is but as a part of 
all — God's all. As we scarcely feel conscious of living 
in eternity until we look outwards and onwards, with 
the scrutiny of reason directing the eye into the blue 
ether, inquiring, Where does it terminate ? and finding 
our only possible answer is, Nowhere ; so, until we 
look into ourselves, we do not perceive what it is that 
discerns the everlasting, and is the everlasting. In the 
visible universe we see the works of Mind ; these 
must be changed, in conformity to Divine thought — 
" As a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall 
be changed ;" but the constituting Mind itself is unalter- 
able, and therefore essentially eternal ; and the mind 
that apprehends must be akin to the mind that creates. 
We recognize in ourselves the reflection, at least, of 
the forming force of purpose and of understanding, and 
because of our inability to think in a godly manner, 
without desiring and expecting to think forever, we 
dare not, with respect to our own existence, say we 
see its termination. We can not determinately meditate 
on thoughts and say, for certainty, our end is in the 
grave. Reason boldly asserts that the possibility is 
otherwise ; but our hearts go before our logic, and 
speak more positively still, for either our hopes or our 
fears take us beyond doubtfulness at once into the un- 
tried being of unavoidable futurity. 

Why is this ? Is it not because the life of man is 
the breath of God ? When the Almighty had fashioned 
the dust into a form of beauty and majesty fit to be 
animated and actuated by a spirit that should assert its 
relationship to Himself, He imparted to the wondrous 
organism a principle of action and of thought, and man 
became a living soul. Thus life is not an inherent and 



MAN IN RELATION TO HIS MAKER. 81 

detached principle, but the indwelling power of the 
present Deity. To enjoy divine life we must feel that 
it is imparted ; as the light and warmth of the sua 
enter the substance of a flower, and fill its fibres and its 
fluids with expanding life, so the Divine power vivifies 
man by pervading all his existence, and thus the quick- 
ening Spirit of God himself is the immediate cause of a 
living, reasoning soul. 

A living soul is a distinct but dependent being, 
susceptible of sympathy with every other being, capa- 
ble of perception and emotion. Because the whole 
immediate creation was constituted in correspondence 
with the faculties of the new T -made selfhood, man looked 
abroad upon all things, and saw the reason of existence 
by thus beholding the wisdom and benevolence of his 
Maker. This w T as the original prerogative of humanity, 
and if it has been forfeited, it has also been restored 
and increased, after the manner of an endless life, for 
eternity must still reveal the purpose of God in making 
man as his own image. Man alone, amidst all the crea- 
tures of earth, can recognize in nature the attributes 
of Jehovah, for no other creature on earth can know 
there is a God. He w T as from his origin inspired to 
respond to the Creative Spirit. His inmost being, his 
very self, became conscious of divine impressions, or 
was impelled intuitively to inquire, with the expectation 
of obtaining intelligence concerning God, because reason 
itself does not assert her power but in seeking to know 
the Divine will, and in doing it. This reason dwelt 
once unclouded in man's bosom, and therefore he at 
once apprehended, or inferred, or hoped aright, since 
all he saw, or heard, or handled, or in any way 
experienced, referred him directly to the Author of all. 
and called him rather to worship than to wonder. He 
alone could believe, he alone could conceive of mean- 
ings, he alone could acknowledge the great first and 
final Cause, the Mind conforming the elements to His 
6 



82 MAN IN RELATION TO HIS MAKEK. 

own purposes, and inducing existence every where to 
express His love and power. 

Thus creation, however marvelous in itself, was but 
as the mirror of the Almighty to the eye of man, and 
therefore to perceive was to adore. He found in his 
Maker alone a perfect object of study, of faith, of hope, 
of love, and all sensible objects were but as media be- 
tween the Ineffable and himself. He saw the All- 
sufficient, and was satisfied. In Him man felt himself 
possessed of an omnipotent friend, who as his originator, 
must especially and everlastingly love him, the highest 
earthly production of His energy. He who is the 
Creator of reason, must supply the ceaseless and ever- 
growing demands of His rational creature. Thus, as 
long as the human spirit walked in confidence and 
fellowship with the Holy One, man could feel no desire 
but as an intimation that it should be fulfilled in further 
evidence of the favor of his Patron and his God. Man's 
faith was then absorbed in his love, and he wondered 
not at the goodness and greatness of the Eternal, for 
then there was nothing in his own nature at variance 
with light and with love. There was then no occasion 
for patience, because there was no unholy disposition 
to be worn out, but heavenly affections grew strong on 
their own enjoyment. Such is our notion of the pris- 
tine or perfect state of man, because it is the state for 
which human nature, when rectified and regulated, 
seems to be designed. The test of creatureship, how- 
ever, is law ; and as man was to know himself safe only 
in union with God, the simplest temptation of his 
nature, as a creature of desires, was sufficient to prove 
his incapacity to obey and live through his own power. 
Without a better understanding of weakness and of 
strength — weakness his own, and strength to be per- 
fectly manifested through it — he could but fall. The 
first man being left to do the best to fulfill God's law, 
with reason alone, fell ; but may we not say he gained 



MAN IN RELATION TO HIS MAKER. 83 

ultimate honor from his degradation, since the com- 
passionate Creator took occasion thus to evince His 
infinite love, by giving man a divine hope with a divine 
power, by which to vanquish evil; for is not Omnipo- 
tence revealed in reconciling all things to Himself 
through human nature ; and are not fallen beings 
thoroughly exalted, and yet the Holy One in wisdom 
vindicated, when the human will itself is so renewed 
in righteousness, through faith, that it becomes just in 
God not to impute sin ? 

We are fallen, and great is the depth of our fall. 
In our ignorance, our doubt, our distrust, we are over- 
whelmed in amazement the moment we truly think, 
for pure thought brings us as if into the presence of 
God, but does not reveal him to us. We are afraid to 
trust ourselves alone with the Almighty. Wheu we 
think of Him, we try to turn away from the awfulness 
of his felt presence. We divert our souls with " the 
sweet music of speech," or by seeking the smiles of 
those who, like ourselves, are in love with the earth 
and its objects. We shun the thought of our only 
Benefactor, and thus we can not rest, because we can 
not rightly love ; and we can not thus love because our 
thoughts are hard, and dark, and suspicious. We im- 
agine the Almighty to be a revengeful being, a despot 
surrounding us with spies and accusers, instead of a 
parent beseeching us, by every means, to be reconcil- 
ed, and to be blest in trusting to His heart and to His 
hand for constant protection and supply. 

These ideas are not irrelevant to our purpose. Man 
is an awful fact to himself. In order to feel this fully, 
it is important that we should dwell upon the truth 
that our spiritual life is manifested by our conscious- 
ness of being more than we seem, and of having de- 
sires not to be satisfied on earth. We do not wonder 
so much at the existence of objects, and at their insuf- 
ficiency, as that we are conscious of them and of our- 



84 MAX IX RELATION TO HIS MAKER. 

selves, but as an intimation of something vet to be 
known, and of an existence beyond this. But all that 
philosophy might infer, or reason in her guessing 

jht surmise, concerning the future, would be una- 
vailing, futile, cold, dead, unless religion kindled and 
quickened our hopes with her own life. The creation 
of mind is indeed the only manifestation of God. He 
is known only in a soul made after his own image, an 
intelligent being, constituted immortal by the will of 
the Infinite, so that the perfection of Divine existence 
might be forever revealing itself to a reason preserved 
in correspondence with it, by the operation of the 
Spirit inhabiting humanity. Hence He who mani- 
fested God as love, and thus illustrated the law as 
the code of His own honor, is the brightness of the 
Father's glory, and we are to be like him. when we 
see him as he is, for we are to be thus created in 
righteousness and true holiness, after the image of the 
Creator. This resemblance to God, in the character 
of man, made perfect in spirit, is the sufficient end of 
our being, the reason why we exist. But this we 
should never have looked for, had not heaven informed 
us what to aim at and to hope. Everlasting progres- 
sion and development are involved in our spiritual 
union by faith with Him. who is the Head over all. 
Had not reason been too busy with phantasms, she 

ht have seen that truth. The objects of creation, 
spiritual or material, new or old. can not have been 
produced, but for the purpose of expressing to created 
intellect what exists entirely at once, now and ever, 
in the Self- existent. Mind answers to mind. Each 
of us must say there was a time when I was not: but 
no man can say the time will never come when I 
shall know all that has been. It may be. that as the 
believing man looks through the light of God into 
eternity, he shall be as if ho had himself forever ex- 
isted : for is not spiritual consciousness capable of rec- 



MAX IN RELATION TO HIS MAKER. 85 

ognizing all the past, as if now present ? and shall we 
not, of course, feel, in every manifestation of Omni- 
potence, that He designs all things in relation to man ? 
Are we not taught, concerning that wisdom which 
was from everlasting, that before the heavens were 
prepared, or the circling deep spread forth. Jehovah 
possessed the thought of this habitable earth, as his 
own delight with the sons of men, and that therefore 
He calls upon them to give heed to His instruction, 
that they may find life, and be blessed in following the 
footsteps of their God ? 

By thinking on existence we learn, first, physical 
order — the relation of matter to matter, world to 
world ; then, moral order — the relation of mind to 
miud. The absence of physical order is chaos, the 
absence of moral order is misery. Order is law in op- 
eration. Thus nature is perpetuated. But moral law 
is distinct both from mental and physical law. Every 
element and material mass is governed by a constitu- 
tion of irs own, it operates always in the same man- 
ner in similar circumstances, and the miud has also 
fixed laws by which it also acts. Thus no man can 
avoid remembering from association, or prevent his 
will from being excited by pleasure or pain. But 
moral law is addressed to the will of man as a spirit 
capable of choosing between good and evil, because 
lie is capable of thinking on the fitness of things as ap- 
pointed by God. A consent to this is mental conform- 
ity to the law of God as good ; willing opposition to 
this is sin, consistency of conduct in obedience to this 
is holiness. That is good which is congruous with the 
happiness both of the individual mind and the commu- 
nity of minds, and the reverse of this is evil. The 
law which requires this congruiry is love or benevo- 
lence ; and the mind that yields to love because it is 
love, is of similar disposition. The man who does 
good because God is good, partakes of God's spirit ; his 



86 MAN IN RELATION TO HIS MAKER. 

will coincides with God's — he obeys from the heart. 
This is the doctrine of Christianity. Therefore it is 
that love relates equally to God and man, and it is im- 
possible for a man truly and religiously to venerate and 
adore the Creator for his goodness without manifest- 
ing kindness to his fellow creatures. " If ye love not 
your brother whom ye have seen, how can ye love 
God whom ye have not seen ?" But oh, the Jesuitry 
of the human soul! Men hunt each other to bloody 
and burning death in the name of Charity, while know- 
ing nothing of him who died for all of them. If God 
were not good, it would be unreasonable to worship 
Him ; and none can worship him without good-will to 
man, for benevolence is the glory in which God reveals 
himself. 

Human knowledge is the progressive perception of 
Omniscience and Omnipotence, the reception indeed, 
so to say, of an atom at a time of the meaning of the 
Infinite Mind. Every production of that Mind bears 
in it the evidences of all its attributes, and successive 
revelation is but the development of a single truth. 
Thus, if we could detach a single point from the uni- 
verse of matter, and look at it in the light of pure 
reason, we should see the force of the Almighty there, 
imbuing it with properties and affinities, fitting it for 
its place in the harmonious whole. The will of God 
gives it inherent faculty of existence, in relation to his 
own purpose. Infinite power and infinite wisdom 
are there, and if these exist to the apprehension of 
our minds, must not our minds exist in relation to that 
power and wisdom ? 

But if beings like ourselves are conscious of Infinite 
Wisdom and Power, how can this be but in connection 
with Infinite Love ? What purpose can there be in 
the revelation of the Deity to His creatures but to ex- 
press a reason why they should confide in Him ? 

Thus we are constantly obliged to revert to the 



MAN IN RELATION TO HIS MAKER. 87 

standing truth — " God is love." The doctrine of util- 
ity is the doctrine of love. Now there is a use in 
every thing, and in every atom of every thing. But 
what is a use ? It is an order or purpose in the crea- 
tion of whatever exists — an inherent quality or prop- 
erty in the constitution of a thing which renders it 
subservient to the benefit of some conscious agent. 
Thus all creation in its minutest parts becomes an ev- 
idence to thinking persons of the Divine intention 
toward themselves, as beings feeling and acknowledg- 
ing the Divine goodness ; for every act of Omnipotence 
is consistent with all other of His acts, and is directed 
to an end, which must be the eternal, infinite good of 
every mind that depends on the wisdom and benevo- 
lence of Aimightiness. 

The use of any thing is, then, resolved into the 
proper employment and enjoyment of the means 
which are provided for the formation of ideas and the 
rectification of desires. Right desires are all provided 
for. All that we can know concerning the use of any 
thing is therefore summed up in the word submission, 
for it teaches only this — Let your intellect and then 
your will, yield to the instruction and to the law of 
God, and you will find yourself satisfied at the source 
of love, power, beauty, and thought. In every in- 
stance that we discern the use of any object or any 
idea, we discern a benevolent adaptation, and it is an 
appeal to our understandings, an appeal of our Maker 
to our souls as an evidence of His interest in our own 
existence. He has made us capable of perceiving His 
perfection, as far as created things, thought, and in- 
spiration reveal it, that we might love, and obey, and 
be blessed ; for salvation is not an appendage to Jeho- 
vah's plan in creation, but an essential part to every 
being that needs it, and beholds God as love, and 
cleaves to Him for sustentation, for will, for ability, 
for intellect, for all. Thus the confiding spirit wor- 



88 MAN IN RELATION TO HIS MAKER. 

ships and glorifies The Father, and rejoices in His 
fullness for ever, and that not blindly, but from a sym- 
pathizing relationship, and therefore with the actual 
enjoyment of an everlasting heritage in His providence 
and graciousness. 






CHAPTER V. 

MENTAL MANIFESTATION. 

The living organism is the medium between objects 
and the soul. In this respect it is divisible into two 
principal parts — the sensitive and the active ; the sen- 
sitive being subservient to sensation and perception — 
the active, enabling the soul to seek objects and to 
evince its feelings. We will to move the foot, for 
instance, and it obeys us in the 1,200,000,000th of a 
second, and impression from without becomes ours at 
the same rate. Such is the velocity and inscrutable 
nature of spiritual action, even through the medium 
of matter. The motive power of the soul in its action 
on the limbs, and also the sensitive faculty associated 
with this motive power, are demonstrated by the phy- 
siologist to reside in the brain and spinal cord, as the 
centers of the nervous system ; and therefore the 
ability of the human spirit to perceive and to act 
through the body must mainly depend upon the in- 
tegrity with which these nervous centers fulfill their 
office. It is manifest that disorder of sensation and 
of muscular action must result from disease in the 
nerves, because will and perception are never exer- 
cised in this world but in connection with nerves. The 
lesson we learn from this liability to morbid manifesta- 
tion is mutual charity. We ought always to regard 
each other with every allowance for bodily constitu- 
tion ; as the state of the soul is mainly dependent on 
the accommodation thus afforded for the operation of 
the mind. 

Disease, whether personal or relative, is the most 
prevalent test of our affections and our faith ; and 
through it the spirit of man when rightly established 



90 MENTAL MANIFESTATION. 

in truth, grows mighty in endurance, and triumphant 
over fear and death. We are required to look com- 
passionately upon the faults of others, considering 
that we also are in the body ; and while throwing the 
light of a loving heart over peculiarities that may not 
please us, do our utmost to ameliorate the physical 
condition of those whose minds are diverted from their 
right objects by discomfort. Let us teach, at least by 
example, that it is only in the right use of the body 
that mental integrity is proved — and, although tempt- 
ation and torment may assail us through the nerves, 
let us show that a soul fortified by faith in God finds 
the victory in the condition of its will, and comes forth 
more than heroic in the conquest of evil by the might 
of good. 

The soul operates with nerve-matter; the will 
causing currents of energy to be excited in different 
portions of that matter, according to the purpose of 
the mind in attending and acting, so as to induce a 
state of muscle and nerve in keeping with the state of 
feeling; and of course, therefore, disorder in the ma- 
terials of mental manifestation disorders the manifest- 
ation itself. We are indebted to physicians for this 
knowledge ; but reason, without the help of physiolo- 
gy, teaches us with sufficient clearness that the per- 
sonality of a human being does not consist of nerves 
and muscles subject to physical derangement, but that 
there is something superadded to this organism which 
through it perceives other things and expresses itself. 
This something is, as we have shown, the true man, 
the soul or self, and every influence, either from with- 
out the body or within it, affects him as a personal 
being related by creation to other beings ; and, there- 
fore, the most comprehensive method of studying the 
endowments and destiny of the soul is to investigate 
its personal relationships, and their influence upon in- 
dividual character and experience. 






MENTAL MANIFESTATION. 91 

As regards the doctrine of ideas, disputes are end- 
less. I am quite content, however, to believe that 
thought is the soul thinking, and ideas are but states 
of mind, or soul at work under the impression either 
of present or remembered objects. Emotions in man 
are connected with ideas, and, in proportion to the 
vividness of thought, will be the feeling associated 
with the thought, always, of course, according to the 
state of the body and the habit of our affections. We 
will not, however, involve ourselves in the mists of 
metaphysical disquisition concerning affections inter- 
nal and external, and faculties definite and indefinite. 
With regard to the habit of viewing the mind as so 
many distinct faculties, we may say, with Locke, 
(Book ii. chap. xxi. sect. 6.) " This way of speaking 
has misled many into a confused notion of so many 
distinct agents in us, which had their several provin- 
ces and authorities, and did command, obey, and per- 
form several actions as so many distinct beings ; which 
has been no small occasion of wrangling, obscurity, and 
uncertainty, in questions relating to them." We would 
not cavil with those who, in studying mental manifes- 
tations, divide these manifestations, as if distinct from 
the mind itself; things must have names in order to 
be scientifically considered ; but we may well object 
to a nomenclature that, instead of indicating the mere 
instrumentality of organization, represents the organs 
as one with the faculty evinced through them — and 
thus not only divides a man into thirty or forty imagi- 
nary cerebral sections, but makes him nothing more 
than a piece of mechanism, with about as much re- 
sponsibility as a locomotive or a mill. In discoursing 
of faculties and susceptibilities, we only refer to ob- 
jects of sense or of thought, and to their effects upon 
us; for all our experience, either intellectual or emo- 
tional, depends on the nature of the soul in relation 
to other beings. When, for instance, the benevolent 



92 MENTAL MANIFESTATION. 

man sees another injured, it is not a sentiment that is 
sympathetically pained, but the man himself, who, ac- 
cording to his character, exerts his faculties, and, like 
a good Samaritan, sets about relieving the sufferer, for 
whom he feels, because constituted with a nature in 
like manner susceptible of injury and suffering. It 
can only be a willing being that can respond to the 
will of another. If a man obey the known commands 
of God, it is not a faculty of conscientiousness and ven- 
eration, as powers operative of themselves, but a soul 
that is conscientious, and venerates and obeys. 

A man acts either from instinct, which relates to 
some bodily necessity, or else from some purpose hav- 
ing respect only to the mind. The motive of organic 
sense is instinct, the motive of mind is reason. Man 
combines both in his present state ; his organism sup- 
plies physical impulse, and his mind operates partly in 
obedience to bodily appetite, and partly for the attain- 
ment of some spiritual advantage, which he expects 
only because he has affections and faculties which can 
not be satisfied without the interchange of thoughts 
with other minds. 

All that any man can really recognize as truth in the 
doctrines of metaphysics, he must know from the 
study of his own mind. " Know thyself" is, however, 
a maxim too deep for men in general, and we are all 
apt to wander in a barren waste of speculation, and 
rather bewilder ourselves with the mirages of a 
weary imagination than quietly draw water from the 
fountain of truth, or sit beneath the tree of life, and 
eat its fruit with a thankful heart. 

A feeling of personal identity is, of course depend- 
ent on the will of the Almighty ; but it must, in the 
nature of things, imply self-consciousness; for that 
which does not feel its own existence, can not be 
aware of the existence of other beings. It must also 
imply successive impressions, or successive states of 



MENTAL MANIFESTATION. 93 

consciousness, and the power of recognizing the dif- 
ference between them; so that memory and compari- 
son are essential to conscious selfhood. All our pas- 
sions, emotions and reasonings arise from the con- 
sciousness of self, in relation to objects as remembered 
things. Hence knowledge, habit, and physical condi- 
tion are the only causes which modify man's affections. 
On the affections is founded all we conceive of agree- 
able or disagreeable, and desire is but the state of the 
will with regard to what we know and feel, for we can 
not desire, for its own sake, what is merely painful, 
nor avoid, for its own sake, what is pleasant. If w T e 
look beyond immediate gratification, it must be from 
attachment to some other being, or for the sake of 
qualifying ourselves the better for companionship with 
what we love, or because we fear the consequences 
to ourselves in offending the Being who has the right 
to command and to punish us. 

There is an inherent relation of our souls to certain 
objects, for without any previous knowledge we are at 
once affected, either painfully or pleasantly, by their 
presence. Our natural attachments are born with us. 
The visible and audible expression of strong emotion, 
in any creature, affects our nerves in such a manner 
as to convey its own meaning. This susceptibility to 
emotion, irrespective of intelligence, is properly denom- 
inated affection ; and as no training can have produced 
this, so it is manifest it must be the especial ground of 
all the ideas which occupy a man's mind. Whether 
true or false, good or bad, a man's ideas will be grouped 
and associated according to the qualities of his affections, 
or the adaptation of his soul to- objects as capable of 
awakening like or dislike, love or hatred. These feel- 
ings express the intrinsic quality or condition of the 
mind, and therefore, if we know a man who intellect- 
ually perceives the beauty of any truth, without being 
moved by the love of it, we at once see that the will 



94 MENTAL MANIFESTATION. 

of that man is engaged in a manner not approved by 
his reason ; he is in a perverted and profane state of 
affection, and can not be brought into an appropriate 
disposition of mind for seeking eternal fellowship with 
the intelligence that is one with goodness, until he has 
undergone a process of rectification by teachings and 
trials, in connection with whatever affection may have 
predominated in his heart to the detriment of his con- 
science. 

Man is so apt to overlook the unity of his being, that 
it is quite common for him to lose all feeling of respon- 
sibility, by supposing himself a compound of incongru- 
ous parts over which he has no control. Heathens, 
giving form to their fancies, and outward expression 
to the state of their minds, have, in all ages, carved 
their own characters in marble or in wood, and have 
deified their own affections, desires, and ideas, by 
making them visible in all imaginable combinations 
of beauty and hideousness. Having thus rendered 
poetry into sculpture, and made feeling a permanent 
presence they fall down to adore their own conceits. 
They divide their divinity, by personifying their own 
lusts and think they see a god when they behold an 
image of themselves ; they people the empyrean with 
heroes that outrage humanity, and crowed their heav- 
en with horrors that earth can scarcely tolerate. 

Perhaps a disposition has always existed in human 
minds to represent their own feelings as different from 
themselves, and therefore it is no wonder that, in this 
respect, the philosopher but emulates the savage. A 
modeler of minds here and there demonstrates his ra- 
tional status by presenting us with casts of his mental 
faculties and affections as distinct from himself, but 
resident in the numberless cells of his brain ; while the 
savage, with equal ingenuity, evinces his mental con- 
dition, by attributing the powers of his own soul to in- 
sensate substances, which he calls gods, because he is 



MENTAL MANIFESTATION. 95 

natural philosopher enough to know that bodies do not 
act without spirits residing in them. Philosophers of 
the more material kind settle their incongruities by 
arranging them in opposite compartments, like prisoners 
in a penitentiary. There is, however, this difference 
in the cases : in the penitentiary one individual inspects 
many others, but the philosopher distributes himself 
in fragments through a multitude of darkened cells, and 
thus disposes of his faults and his faculties together, 
while the individual is lost and the mind is nowhere. 
Others would analyze intellect and volition, as they 
would the soil, and having separated its elements, and 
set them aside, they wonder what we mean when we 
ask them what they have done with the soul?. The 
ego has been so complacently busy in research as to 
forget itself; and the man believing only as he works, 
through his eyes and his hands, observes that, having 
submitted humanity to a dry distillation, he finds no 
residuum, but a caput mortuum of dust. 

We are strangely taught, by some of our best ethical 
writers, Lhat desires and affections exist without voli- 
tion, but unless they mean more than their words signi- 
fy, we can not understand them ; for where is the desire 
without will, and where the affection that is neither 
pleasing nor displeasing ? Will must be excited in 
every manifestation of self, for all we feel is but the 
resuit of the correspondence between the sensitive 
soul and its objects ; and if these be so indifferent to 
us as not to produce volition, we must soon lose sight 
of them, and, falling asleep, enter the world of dreams, 
for even dreams are more real than sights and sounds 
without effect upon us. We never attend without an 
exercise of will, and the qualities of things induce a 
state of mind in the individual regarding them accord- 
ing to his intuitive perception, habit, or association. By 
intimacy with the feelings of others, we are apt to feel 
like them. Their tastes become ours ; we sympathize 



96 MENTAL MANIFESTATION, 

with them until we resemble them. Thus our affec- 
tions are educated as well as our intellect, and we are 
always capable of departing as widely from good feel- 
ing as from sound thinking by fellowship with erroneous 
souls ; for to depart from God is not only to forsake truth, 
but to pass into falsehood, which is never an abstract 
negation, but an active evil positively at work to corrupt 
the will. Thus minds always both stray and suffer 
when left untutored and unrestrained by those wise 
spirits that care for others. We can not separate the 
emotion from the affection, nor the desire from the will, 
except in speculative words. Will in action is desire, 
and a will inactive is no will. The mind, operating in 
relation to objects of sense, is mind under more or less 
of emotion — self more or less impressed by what is 
agreeable or otherwise ; thus the soul evinces its will ; 
and the mind, attending to ideas and comparing them, 
whether from direct impression or in memory, is a 
thinking mind or intellect. Now it is evident, that 
both will and the power of knowing or being impressed 
are essential to a conscious being. And man's superi- 
ority, as a mind, is shown in his capacity of abstracting 
his attention from objects to fix it upon ideas, so as to 
reason concerning them. His reason is his faith. So 
then man, fully manifested, wills, knows, believes, and 
luves. This is his nature. Therefore he must be 
provided with objects in keeping with his nature — 
things to desire, to understand, and to believe. And 
in as far as man is created with a capacity of thinking 
of the Creator as the originator of all things, he must 
be constituted to find in Him the supreme object of 
desire, of knowledge, and of faith- In other words, 
man's will and intellect must find their satisfaction in 
God, and in what He provides : for man can not ration- 
ally enjoy any thing in creation but as he finds in it the 
expressions of his Maker's mind toward himself; there- 
fore an irreligious man is so far unreasonable — his 



M E N T A L M A \ 1 P E S T A T I O X . JJ / 

reason is without its chief end, the efficient object of 
love, the only source of light and joy. 

To know truly, to love truly, to believe truly, is to 
know, love, believe, what God has provided ; and to be 
deprived of this, is to be ignorant and unhappy. But 
He has not left himself any where without witnesses 
of his tender care for human beings. - He has given us 
all something for the exercise of whatever faculties we 
possess, leading us on in thought from the deficien- 
cies of the past and the present to the fullness of the 
future, that we may be conscious that we hang upon 
His unfailing Providence for all we have and all we 
hope. 

Let us not suffer ourselves to be beguiled out of our 
birthright as intelligent beings, by the vapory modes of 
speech invented by the misty order of metaphysicians, 
or the more mechanical surveyors of our brains, but 
let us remember, that whatever the peculiarities of 
our mental manifestation, we are still individuals, and 
not complicated thinking machines. We hear, feel, 
see, taste, smell; we desire, hope, fear, confide, vene- 
rate, determine; we compare, reflect, reason; ive exer- 
cise intellect and feel emotion; we sin; ive suffer; we 
live forever ; and ice need a Saviour, that knows our 
nature in all it is, and all it can be, and who is capable 
of providing for us according to the vastness of our 
necessities. 

Superinduced upon the vitality of his physical frame- 
work, man, in his present state, has two modes of 
psychical manifestation, which distinguish him from 
animals. He is capable of living in an ideal world 
produced in his mind by the impression of exterior 
objects, and he is capable of enjoying thoughts which 
the material universe could not engender nor suggest, 
unless to a reason enlightened by underived Intelli- 
gence. Man is the prophet and the seer, the expositor 
of nature, the student of events, the only being on 
7 



ear: th the plans of Provi- 

dence and the pre e tuture. And while he 

voluntarily dwells upon his own past for the renewal of 
or to indulge in the luxury of recollected 
sorrow, he feels called on to look further back, and 
forward, and around, not as if he were alone the e 
ject of his own ids if the inheritor in spirit 

d accomplished and all that is to come. 
It is true, that he alone beholds the autobiography of 
the heart, and sees written in his memory, as in a book, 
the indelible record of his life. But his individual 
peri- Ht a small part of his treasury of f. 

he glances ic _: of thought, to witnesr 

in a moment of time ? and as in a living panorama spread 
before the eye ..: .-r.ns of history, 

.:e especial science of his race, in respect to the 
promises and providence of God: he mingles in imagi 
nation with the generations that air bis heart 

glows at the songs of bards two thousand years old: his 
nerves thrill at the eloquence of men that can never 

it is kindled by thoughts that have par 
from soul to soul since souls have been; he sympa 
thizes in the - : human spirits erroneously 

bbori _ ere truth brings the liberty 

of know id of power, he seems to join the 

nations in their welcome to the light; he weeps at 
their griefs, and laughs when they are _ : every 
utterance of huiy heart, like a 

familiar interest, and he feels the touch of kindred and 
of love that vibra: _h all time; he trembles 

agony, to behold mighty souls losing their way and 
groping iu the dr.: tradition, anc after 

God without finding him : and, if a Christian, he burns, 
perl eak of Jesus to P; . ro Plato, and 

to Socrates : and. to s find 

them learned in the Word of God and glorious in his 

lorn. Thus the human spirit can take its part in 



MENTAL MANIFESTATION. 99 

all the progresses of its race ; go back, as if with Milton, 
to the beginning, when "the heavens and the earth 
rose out of chaos ;" associate in soul with the first Adam 
in his perishable Paradise, and then, deliberately look- 
ing through all the passages of a fallen and redeemed 
world, go forth in the strength of an unfailing faith 
to meet the second Adam, the Lord from heaven, 
returning to establish among men the immovable do- 
minion of righteousness and love. 

Man's character is formed by his ideas, and these 
are of three classes : — 

1st. Those which he has in common with inferior 
creatures— the mere reflex of nervous impression. 

2dly. Those that are purely human, rational, reflect- 
ive, but li*nited to natural or physical objects. 

3dly. Those that are revealed and divine, and tend- 
ing to bear the soul onward to futurity, in consequence 
of what it perceives as the moral necessity of its own 
existence. 

Perhaps there is not a being in human form so 
unhappily associated or so miserably uninstructed as 
to live entirely in the lowest or brutal state, unless 
from necessity, as is the case of certain idiots, who 
can obtain no associate ideas, in consequence of some 
defect in the organization of the brain through which 
the soul perceives. The relation between thoughts 
and things is lost in such cases, because the soul can 
not rest upon sensation so as to make comparison dis- 
tinctly. Perfect idiots can attend to impressious only 
so far as to act instinctively; they are, therefore, re- 
moved beyond the pale of humanity, excepting as they 
serve to exercise our faith in Omnipotence, and lead us 
to look forward to the manifestation of His benevolence 
in the emancipation of souls from the imprisonment of 
incommodious and impeding bodies. 

It is manifest that when the mind has not the power 
or opportunity of working, whatever of the inferior 



100 MENTAL MANIFESTATION. 

cast belongs to human nature will then operate unre- 
strained. The history of idiotism is a doleful illustra- 
tion of this truth, but yet, like every evil, it points to 
good, and calls us to exercise faith in God, as the 
provider of means against misery. Idiotism proves 
the debasing influence of neglecting humanity. Even 
in its worst forms it is still somewhat amenable to 
kindness and to skill. Whenever a human soul can be 
reached by another, so as to feel a good intention, 
there is an improvable being. As long as the organiza- 
tion of the senses and their associate brain are not so 
imperfect as to prevent connected attention to objects, 
it is in the power of one man to elicit the light hidden 
in another ; and many men, seeing this, and devoutly 
loving human souls for love's sake, have set themselves 
with patience to the task of redeeming idiots from the 
hideousness of confused instincts, undirected and with- 
out aim. By persevering efforts, in attracting and 
fixing their attention steadily and sympathetically to 
the actions of their teachers — teachers, so to say, by 
contact — multitudes of such forlorn beings have been 
brought into smiling association with humanity and 
reason ; thus proving that those left to neglect and 
ill-treatment must be the pests and terrors of social 
and domestic life, until the unconquerable philanthropy 
of practical wisdom and charity is brought to bear upon 
them and bring them forth from degradation into 
rational relationship. If asylums for idiots had done 
nothing more than teach us that beautiful souls may lie 
completely concealed under disgusting coverings, they 
had done much; but they have also taught us that the 
might of patience, sympathy, and kindness, is greater 
far than the world yet knows. They have, moreover, 
indicated how much may, in general, be done to restore 
human nature to its right place, by true knowledge 
and love, duly exercising the authority which alone 
belongs to them, by showing how mental and physical 



MENTAL MANIFESTATION. 101 

evils may be prevented by moral restraints, and reme- 
died, as far as man may remedy, by insisting on obe- 
dience to the laws of nature and of God. 

If the brain be not so diseased or deficient as to pre- 
clude the soul from attention, through it moral educa- 
tion is probably always possible. A superior mind as- 
serts its power, first by controlling its own impulses, 
and then by the orderly purpose of action in visible 
self-management, sympathetically governing the minds . 
of others also. Thus, by persevering determination in 
regulating muscular movements, by bringing the senses 
steadily into use, and by exercising the will intel- 
ligently in every action, M. Sequin, and others on his 
plan, have succeeded in training the most unpromising 
idiots into conscientious agents. The philanthropy 
thus beautifully and wisely at work, opens to our 
view more of the practical science of education than 
all the discourses on mental discipline with which 
schoolmen have afflicted us : it has demonstrated that 
mind rules mind most effectually by asserting its right 
to be attended to, and that none can be lost to im- 
provement who can be brought into willing obedi- 
ence, and that this obedience, or yielding of self, is 
induced by the visible and constant interest of the 
governing in the governed. Mere coercion fails, even 
with an idiot : the mind is not brought out into in- 
tercourse, except by a strong will dominating over it 
by engaging it agreeably. The state of the body is a 
state of will, in as far as it tends either to pleasure or 
pain ; and if the mind be perverted by an ill state of 
body, the only way to recover it from wrong desires 
is to command attention to other perceptions than 
those produced by the disorder or ill condition of the 
body or of any of its organs and functions ; a new state 
of will must be induced. This is exemplified to the 
full by M. Sequin's treatment of the perverted and 
disordered idiot. He at first governs the idiot's mus 



102 MENTAL MANIFESTATION 

cles for him, by putting himself completely in the idi- 
ot's way as, so to say, his only object. All the senses 
that poor imbecile may possess he confines to his own 
movements: he masters the forlorn being by infusing 
a new will into his limbs ; he takes hold of them gen- 
tly and firmly, and slowly moves them, as he wishes, 
consecutively, and for the attainment of certain ends. 
Thus the mindless, purposeless pupil moves with his 
master, until his muscles are educated into associate 
action. In short, the teacher adopts the only method 
open in such a case to obtain any degree of fellow- 
ship, and thus he draws out the idiot's mind into con- 
sistent action, as far as possible with so incommodious 
an organization of brain, nerve, and muscle, as an idiot 
existence implies. And all embodied minds must be 
reached and ruled on the same principles — the will of 
one must be brought into relation to the other by 
physical helps ; there must be co-operation until there 
is established sympathy ; and then, where sympathy 
is established, if mental development and manifesta- 
tion be not a physical impossibility, an order of kin- 
dred thinkings may be conducted through one mind 
to the other, and that moral intercourse will result for 
which reason exists and language is given. 

The exercise of memory is generally the chief part 
of education, as usually conducted, but this is really 
the least important in itself; for if memory alone be 
cultivated, a man may learn to have no thoughts of his 
own, although as full of words and facts as an ency- 
clopedia. The intellect may be quickened into such 
intense activity, memoriter, as to be ever busy with as- 
sociations and comparisons, and even to be poetically 
and even mathematically insane, but yet make no 
progress in practical truth. The man of large re- 
membrance may be not a whit the more moral, or the 
more religious, or the more useful to society and 
home, for all his knowledge. He may be only a man 



MENTAL MANIFESTATION. 103 

of ideas, after all, — a mere psychological curiosity, — 
unless he learn to regulate his body as the outward 
and visible part of the formal soeial system. Religion 
and morality are not ideal things. We recognize, in- 
deed, most fully the fact that man is a psychical be- 
ing, a soul : for physical senses and frameworks would 
be useless if an operative and percipient agent were 
not engaged, through them in forming ideas. Objects 
and sensations can never become thoughts but to a 
thinking being. But a man must perceive and under- 
stand his relation to objects before he can justly re- 
flect or properly feel. Thought is altogether wide of 
its purpose, but as from an intuitive sense of the fitness 
of other created things to the individual mind. With- 
out this the symbols of thought are never interpreted, 
and the senses serve only to awaken impulses that 
have no meanings beyond those of the idiot and the 
brute. The human being must be taught to perceive 
and feel his relation to other intelligences before his 
moral nature can be developed. He must be drilled 
as well as disciplined. His will must be brought into 
coincidence with others ; he must move with them as 
well as reciprocate their affections, before there can 
arise a sense of duty or a disposition to act with re- 
spect to another's claim upon his conduct. Free will 
does not begin to be evinced until the mind perceives 
this duty, and until then moral consciousness is not 
awakened. The distinctive attribute of man slumbers 
until the mind is conscientiously cultivated by practi- 
cal lessons, or by the embodiment of good thoughts in 
good actions. If a man have never seen any but ma- 
lignant or evil passions at work, how can he have a 
good thought ? Human minds must not be judged by 
the heavenly standard until they have been brought 
under Divine doctrines, and that not in abstract terms, 
not in words alone, but in words interpreted by the 
language of life, by example, by excellence made visi- 



104 MENTAL MANIFESTATION. 

hie in deed, just as the Son of God taught the bewil- 
dered sons of men. Thus Christians stir the world, 
agitate spirits, rouse wills, grapple other minds, and 
shake them with the truths that shake you ; propagate 
the energy that is to regenerate mankind, because it 
is the will of God that is in you. 

There are many among men so satisfied with the 
brutal kind of accommodation, that they forget that 
blood, nerve, and muscle were placed in relation to the 
human soul only to subserve it with means of learning 
truth and of exercising will, so as to prove that mind 
is eternal and irresistible when in the possession of 
ability from God to believe in Divine goodness, and 
thus to conquer evil. These men, having their souls 
biased by depraved habit, prefer what they en 11 
sense, and so modify their reason with the constancy 
of their search for pleasures of sight, sound, taste, and 
touch, as not to allow ideas of a higher order to remain 
before the eye of the mind, or even to enter on the 
field of their perceptions. Their Paradise is not 
merely one of fools, but of idiots, since to be quite fit 
for it men must content themselves with the grossest 
bodily sensations. 

A third class are on earth — but are they not few ? — 
whose ideas are not all convertible into dreams and 
phantasms. There is a reality of life about these men 
as regards the purposes of their minds, which will not 
suffer them to limit their attention to images of objects 
merely ; they have moral notions, and believe in God, 
and in a grand arrangement to take place in a world to 
come, on decisively righteous principles, so that each 
soul shall stand eternally in relation to happiness pre- 
cisely according to the state of its will and affection 
toward the Holy One. Men with these convictions 
and expectancies are, of course, disposed to use this 
world without abusing it, and always aim at the sub- 
jection of the animal nature, both in sensation and 



MENTAL MANIFESTATION. 105 

idea, that their conduct may tend to demonstrate the 
excellence of reason, by proving its power to rule on 
principles derived from Heaven, and from motives, 
that, as they arise from love to the Lord of life, must 
defy death, and regulate the springs of thought and 
action forever. 

This is the really reasonable class, for in its full ex- 
ercise reason is always religious, since veneration to 
the Supreme is the only truly exalting tendency of 
the soul ; and it elevates the whole man, as if by the 
Divine attractiveness of light and love, into fellowship 
with the Maker of heaven. If we are not capable of 
recognizing the power and wisdom of God in the ob- 
jects of creation and in its ordinances of harmonious 
co-operation, we are not, indeed, rational, and can not 
discern right from wrong. The law of heaven is then 
hid from our eyes, because we have not entered on 
the proper exercise of our higher faculties, since for 
these there can be no occasion, except in the investi- 
gation of truth, as revealed to our understandings in 
the workings of the Almighty in matter and on minds. 
If men discover nothing of God in nature, or in the 
spiritual revelations of thought, they must be dark at 
heart and unreasonable in conduct; for this is that 
form of ignorance that makes deities of lusts, and fate 
of lawless will, because men living under its influence, 
being filled with falsehood and delusion, can believe 
only either sensually or superstitiously. Being tyran- 
nized over, in one case by their sensations, and in the 
other by their fears, their ideas have nothing to do 
with logic, nor their morality with love. They toler- 
ate each other only from convenience, just as a fright- 
ened herd crowd their heads together for mutual 
defense; they begin to butt at each other as soon as 
the motive for such association is past, and obedient 
only to selfish impulses, they separate, to roam or to 
ruminate, as the bodily state of each may suggest 



108 MENTAL MANIFESTATION. 

The reason why many really live a brutal kind of 
existence arises, as we have seen, from the circumstance 
that human beings are constituted in a great measure 
with relation to mere animal life. They possess bodies 
formed on natural or physical principles, and confining 
their attention, either from ignorance or from indo- 
lence, too much to this body and its conveniences, 
they lose sight of the supernatural or spiritual relations 
of their minds, and satisfy themselvesas, well as they 
can, with brutal comforts and bodily enjoyments. 

In these days when so much ingenuity is evinced in 
endeavoring to reduce man to the elements of nature, 
it is important clearly to see wherein the human mind, 
when permitted to be manifested, differs from that of 
mere animals. If a dog had a brain like a man's, say 
some physiologists, he would be reasonable and reli- 
gious. This is the same as saying, if a dog were 
human he would not be a dog. All such ifs are simple 
impossibilities, because what is one thing can not be 
another. A human brain belongs to a human being, 
and no other being ever had such a brain ; and yet the 
brain no more makes the man, or the dog, than the 
man or the dog make the brain. God constitutes his 
creatures, and he has determined that no creature on 
earth but man should voluntarily control his impulses 
for moral purposes. Man can train himself by the ap- 
prehension of a will wiser than his own, but animals 
can not will otherwise than as their senses may impress 
them and excite desires. Man can believe in God as 
a Lawgiver, and he can wish to love his neighbor as 
himself, because he can perceive that it is essential to 
the well being of all intelligences endowed with active 
powers, that they should mutually regard each other's 
interests, or they would be mutually injurious. Where 
are the morals of beasts — and what are their charities ? 
Can a brute reflect on the probable effect of his con- 
duct on the feelings of another? Can it perceive any 



MENTAL MANIFESTATION. 107 

evil in its will ? Is it capable of acting conscientiously ? 
Can it put itself in relation to history ? Can it arrange 
past facts into new pictures ? Can it obey God, from 
love and gratitude ? Can it trust to His hand ? It can 
do nothing of the sort — and, therefore, until those ex- 
pounders of natural history, who include Omnipotence 
only as a part of the theory of development, have 
brought forth for us some specimen of a quadrumanous 
or other mammal, not born of woman, but yet devout 
toward God, and consequently conscientious toward 
man, we must take the liberty of doubting their admis- 
sion to the councils of the Almighty. But, alas ! 
it is easy to find men so far resembling brutes, that 
they neither venerate the Author of their being nor 
justly regard the claims of their fellow creatures. But 
they are not forced to remain in such a state. If they 
are not idiotic, they may so attend to the doctrines of 
nature and revelation, as to see that the Maker of 
beauty is a proper object of love, and that He who 
harmonizes the universe by light must be the source of 
blessedness to ail who obey His laws. 

Whatever similarity may exist between the mental 
manifestation of brutes and the actions of some men, 
there is still an immeasurable and impassable gulf be- 
tween the human mind and the brutal, which can be 
accounted for only from the supposition that God has 
imparted to the soul of man a power of desiring and of 
acquiring ideas in infinite succession, through which it 
may learn and love for eternity. The human soul can 
be educated on moral and religious, that is to say. on 
rational principles, because it is constituted to reflect the 
mind of its Maker, as evinced in beauty and order, or 
law and government. In short, man alone can ac- 
knowledge a Creator, or be instructed from his works 
and his word, to trust him and to honor him. Rea- 
son is the mirror of God, and reflects his image 
— and the soul of man, perceiving in itself this reflex 



108 MENTAL MANIFESTATION. 

of perfection, is able in some measure to appreciate 
the love and understand the power, which belong to 
Him — who, as the one origin and end of being is the 
only object demanding his devotion and worthy of 
his worship. Until we find animals equally endowed, 
we shall have no reason to compare man with them. 
When they begin to exercise free will and conscience, 
we may talk of their morality, and then consider their 
expectations of immortality. They can not desire a 
spiritual life, or a conformity with the Divine will, by 
its embodiment in person or in action. They see 
neither life nor death, and truly, as before said, the man 
who lives not in truth, and loves not God, is so far like 
them. The lower order of mind from physical defect, 
or groveling mismanagement and ignorance, is humanly 
brutal : the next order is rationally intelligent, so far 
as the use of this world's elements of knowledge and 
advantage may serve the purposes of thought and action. 
The third order of minds is devoutly spiritual, from 
some degree of Divine illumination in the understand- 
ing, by the entrance of truths addressed directly to the 
heart and intellect of man, as being conscious of entire 
dependence on the All-wise for every endowment that 
shall qualify him for association with the intelligences 
that bow adoringly and hearken to the words of God. 
In this order of minds the thoughts are apt habitually 
to take the form of prayer. They trust actively, they 
praise actively, they pray actively, they live silently, 
unostentatiously, divinely, efficiently, because they live 
feelingly upon the beneficence of the Might that thus 
always operates both on earth and in heaven. 

Without spiritual knowledge, or the consciousness 
of good and evil, man has no free will, and can only 
choose evilly, selfishly, or simply to answer the sensu- 
al purposes of this bodily life ; and thus it must be, 
until he so understands the character of his Maker as 
to love it, and to hate whatever is opposed to it. This 



MENTAL MANIFESTATION. 109 

perception and apprehension of Divine perfection can 
be conferred only by God himself; for how can man 
willingly conform to the law of God, without being in- 
structed by His Spirit? Thus men do the will, and 
learn the wisdom of God, by the operation and impart- 
ation of a creative power, which induces a change of 
mental direction, equivalent to a new nature in the 
thoughts and purposes of man, so that he becomes holy 
in body, soul, and spirit, by acting in faithful obedience 
to the demands of his Maker. Instead of seeking for 
a self-satisfaction for to-day, the really religious man 
should live, every conscious moment, with his mind 
set upon conformity to a higher, holier will, and thus 
seeking an unfading glory, and looking to God, find in 
Him the happiness, the end, the sufficiency of his 
being. He who is thus spiritually alive can not but 
believe in eternal life, because he has already begun 
to enjoy it in earnest; and he can not but believe in 
everlasting love, because he knows that if we, beiug 
evil, give good gifts to our children, our Father in 
heaven will much rather give His Holy Spirit to them 
that ask Him; and thus religion proves itself divine — 
the end and purpose of reason to the man who re- 
ceives the revelation of Heaven. 



CHAPTER VI. 

S E L F-3I A HA6SMS >" T. 

With an endeavor to simplify the science of mind, 
it has been my aim, I hope not presumptuously, al- 
ways to keep in view the unity and individuality of the 
being which feels, thinks, and acts. It is a self, or a 
soul that is conscious of sensation, thought, and will. 
Whatever be the experience of the mind, it is a con- 
dition of the ego, with relation either to objects or the 
ideas of objects. It is a personal being, existing ex- 
perimentally, and in the actual perception of realities, 
or in the remembrance of them, and weal or woe is 
the state of the individual in his inward life and self- 
consciousness. But the soul of man has relation to 
a three-fold order of consciousness — of thought or in- 
tellect; of feeling, or some degree of emotion; of de- 
sire, or some exercise of will. These correspond with 
the three-fold division of the nervous system, the cer- 
ebral, the cerebro-spinal, and the ganglionic. But it 
is important to observe that this division destroys not 
the unity of the soul, since in thought, feeling and de- 
sire are involved, and in every degree of emotion, 
thought and desire are included, and in desire, emo- 
tion is blended with thought. Willing and feeling are 
essential to intellect; and either the one or the other 
predominates, according as the soul manifests itself in 
its different bodily relations. This division of mani- 
festation is a practical truth, that demands to be borne 
in mind in our endeavors at self-cultivation ; for all 
defects in education are traceable to mismanagement, 
both of the body and the mind, in one or all of these 
divisions; and it is in the relation which these divis- 



SELF-MANAGEMENT. Ill 

ions bear to each other that we find the limit to the 
power of mental training. We have to preserve a 
just balance between intellect, emotion, and will, or 
the mind becomes more or less deranged in operation. 
The person whose thinking faculties are cultivated at 
the expense of his affections and natural desires, lives 
in a world of abstractions, as if amid ideas that find no 
representatives in the universe of God. One whose 
thoughts are left to wander at random in the region 
of romance, becomes a being full of sentimentalism, 
and is lost in inordinate affection, either in idea or real- 
ity ; while he whose natural desires are neither re- 
strained by natural affection nor regulated by thought, 
descends to the baser madness of the habitual sensu- 
alist. 

Thus we see that mental and moral fortitude, or 
virtue, consists in maintaining that adjustment of our 
nature which includes the management of bodily im- 
pulses, under the feeling of those superior motives 
that spring only from the understanding of our duty 
to God and our neighbor, and a firm resolution, under 
the encouragement of Divine and ever ready help, to 
do it. It is in this way that man walks with God in 
health, and enters heaven as his natural home. 

I would thu3 define the three-fold division of mental 
operation : — 

Intellect is the self, or soul, perceiving physical and 
logical relations, and acting on them. 

Moral feeling is the self, perceiving the relation of 
conscious beings to itself, and acting accordingly. 

Emotion is the effect of ideal or present objects upon 
one's sense of self, as regards pain or pleasure. 

Each of these conditions of mind is modified by bod- 
ily state and the employment of the senses. Healthy 
organization of nerve and brain is essential to the ex- 
ercise of that attention on which clear ideas depend 
while using the body; and, therefore, in as far as at- 



112 S E L F-M A N A G E M E N T . 

tention modifies emotion, our feelings must be influ- 
enced by the body. 

Moral perception will of necessity be obscure, 
where reason itself is darkened ; but its defects ap 
pertain rather to the will than to the understanding, 
though will itself is limited, in certain respects, by 
physical necessity. 

Emotion, as far as the mind can act voluntarily in 
controlling its own feelings, will be evinced according 
to the state of the intellect and the acuteness of moral 
perception ; but in as far as the susceptibility to im- 
pression from objects depends on nervous sensibility, 
it is manifest that whatever modifies this sensibility 
will also modify emotion. Hence it is, that sex and 
temperament exercise so large an influence over the 
formation of character, and in the conduct of individ- 
uals, under the same rational and moral convictions. 

In considering the connection between the mind and 
the body, it is of the highest importance always to re- 
member that the mind, or rather the being that thinks 
and w T ills, is the active agent. The body, with all its 
beautiful and wondrous adaptations, only supplies the 
means of perception and of acting. Nerve-matter is 
the evident medium and instrument of the being that 
perceives and acts through it. Physiologists appear 
to have demonstrated that an imponderable principle, 
akin to electricity, is evolved in the nervous system, 
and that currents of this fluid are constantly traversing 
the different sets of nerves, according to their office 
and function, either as the media of sensation, volition, 
or of vegetative life. There is, in short, an action 
going forward in all the nerves and their centers, sim- 
ilar to the electro-magnetic, and consequently every 
nerve is polarized. The soul appears to operate upon 
these electro-magnetic currents, and to be impressed 
by them. The imponderable energia passing in these 
currents is apparently the medium between the soul 



SELF-MANAGEMENT. 1 13 

and the more palpable materials forming the body. 
This may be inferred from the fact, that whatever 
alters the force of these currents alters the condition 
of the mind in relation to the body. Thus the arrest 
of the current in a nerve subservient to voluntary mus- 
cular action, whether by chemical or mechanical 
means, prevents the mind from exercising will in the 
use of the muscle with which the nerve experimented 
on is connected. The same occurs, also, in the like 
case with any nerve through which we obtain sensa- 
tion of the presence of any body which, in a natural 
state, would so affect the nerve as to produce feeling. 
Another evidence that the soul acts through this fluid 
is afforded in the circumstance that, by strongly di- 
recting attention to any part, as, for instance, the eye, 
a new sensation is perceived in the organ ; and if this 
kind of attention be persisted in, or frequently re- 
peated, the eye becomes inflamed and painful. It is 
also evident, that those nerves that belong to parts, the 
natural functions of which are carried on without our 
consciousness — such as the stomach — may be ren- 
dered sensitive by a strong action of the will; and the 
operation of all the reflex, or ordinarily involuntary 
system, is modified by mental emotion. In fact, every 
thought changes the nerve-current. Moreover, the 
brain itself, and all the nerves connected with it, are 
so far influenced by the will of the individual as to be 
not only directed into new modes, so as to effect an 
entire alteration in the habit of mental and muscular 
action, but also to such a degree, that " the completely 
organized brain is partly a creation of self-directing 
and self-repeating mental activity," (Feuchtersleben, 
p. 123.) It is, so to say, developed by the habits of 
the soul. 

The rapidity of the mental processes seems to re- 
quire an electric or some similar medium, by which 
they may be effected in connection with the body, since 



114 SELF-MANAGEMEWT. 

they result so instantaneously that the will to move 
for instance, and the motion, are simultaneous. Pro- 
fessor Wheatstone has proved that electricity, like light, 
travels at the rate of 192,000 miles in a second : and 
this appears to be an agency sufficiently subtile to 
answer all the purposes of the soul as an active being. 
Probably electricity and light are but one agent, acting 
under different relations. It is interesting to consider 
ourselves as operating, by each act of our will, upon 
embodied light ; but whatever be the immediate agency 
between mind and muscle, it is vastly more interesting 
to know, that the willing being is something as really 
and distinctly existing as the light itself, but in its 
nature infinitely more subtilely and exquisitely consti- 
tuted, since it is indivisibly and inscrutably associated 
with the Being who said, '-Let light be, and light 
was." 

If we advance further in contemplating our mental 
existence in connection with the body, we shall more 
clearly perceive, that the body itself is not the cause 
but the instrument of mind. In order that it should 
be a ready instrument, it is, as we see, constructed on 
electro-magnetic principles, so that it serves the pur- 
poses of the mind in many spontaneous actions, with- 
out even awakening consciousness. Whatever is es- 
sential to the processes of life is carried on in the 
economy, without our consent ; and until some demand 
is made by the body, requiring our voluntary interfer- 
ence for the removal of inconvenience or for the supply 
of aliment, our attention is not so far attracted to the 
body as that our desires are distinctly perceived to arise 
from its state. Thus we feel hunger or thirst, and use 
means for their removal. But our emotions and affec- 
tions are at all times influenced by bodily condition, and 
in many respects, may be traced to a physical origin. 
They are so far involuntary, that their causes are in 
operation before we are aware, and they are apt to 



SELF-MANAGEMENT. 115 

evince their power against our wills ; yet reason is 
tested by their presence, and she prevails over them in 
proportion to the clear perception and experience of 
spiritual motives, or those moral convictions which arise 
from religious enlightenment. Were it not that our 
connection with the body subjects us to feelings against 
which we are conscientiously and reasonably required 
to contend, we should be incapable of that self-conscious- 
ness by which we distinguish ourselves from our bodies 
In fact, those who find no other inducement to thought 
and action than the body affords, are really incapable 
of apprehending any other than bodily existence, and 
they live not according to spiritual but sensual motive. 

The passions being heightened impulses, consented 
to by the mind, are evidently connected with the 
emotions. They are strong expressions of pleasure or 
displeasure, according to the state of the will or the 
mental intention at the time of the impulse. We desire 
whatever promises us pleasure, but this desire may be 
removed from the mind by the previous consideration 
of the nature and consequence of such a pleasure in a 
moral view. The enjoyments of sense may give place 
to those of thought. The inclination of reason will be 
directed by the knowledge of results and by its dispo- 
sition to yield to what it recognizes as Divine law. The 
object pursued by rational choice will be according to 
our apprehension of the nature of that which is pre- 
sented, with respect to good and evil morally considered. 
But, of course, without the reception of the Divine 
moral law as a standard of conduct, there can be no 
other sense of good and evil but that which many infi- 
dels have advocated — namely whatever the individual 
may find agreeable or otherwise, with no other modi- 
fication than that of selfish convenience. 

Those who deny that our Maker has revealed His 
will as the rule of life, are perfectly consistent in 
representing every heart as being rightfully a law to 



116 XT. 

itself — not from conscience but for pleasure, not for 
eternity but for time, not for life everlasting but for 
speedy death. 

The emotions and passions, as regards man. are in- 
deed but different conditions of the sense of self: but 
then they receive modification, according to the degree 
of mental culture and the purity of moral motive and 
purpose, as well as from the state of the body. Let 
us consider that state of mind known as cheerfulness. 
What is this but an undefined pleasure in the con- 
sciousness of life, with that degree of satisfaction which 
is felt during the absence of any thing annoying, and 
without the presence of any object that excites passion ? 
Yet it can never exist without a quiet hopefulness, and 
hence the man who busily = t:s about doing his duty 
is most disposed cheerily to whistle at his work. A 
certain forgetfulness of consequences, whether from a 
careless disposition or from the influence of a stimulus, 
often induces e of mind, but a wise man is 

likely to rejoice without a good reason. 

Some metaphysicians include certain emotions in 
their catalogue of passions, and others classify certain 
passions among the emotions. This discrepancy pro- 
bably arises from a disregard of the fact that both our 
ins and our emotions, with reference to objects of 
ie, are but states of self, in relation to impression, 
and the energy with which they may be manifested de- 
pends on the state of the body and its organs at the time 
my impulse acts upon us. To illustrate my mean- 
ing more fully, I will examine anger — the most violent 
of our emotions, and emphatic; aated passion. 

Kuwever sudden the seizure of tbi orevis^ it 

springs directly from a feeling of interference with the 
accomplishment of some desire : it is the energetic 
expression of oriense at the ?e of our wills. It 

therefore operates throughout the muscular system, 
and makes a strong demand upon our hearts for a rapid 



1 17 

supply of blood, and summons the brain to put forth all 
its energy. The degree to which the brain and heart 
may be excited will depend upon their state. We well 
know that the nervous system and the blood may be in 
a condition to favor irascible feeling, aud render even 
a wise man in danger of appearing both foolish and ill- 
tempered. Who has not seen or heard enough of the 
mysteries of madness, to be aware that ungovernable 
ra^e is one of its most terrible modes, in consequence 
of the feeling of offense coinciding with a state of body 
so predisposed to promote its expression, that total ex- 
haustion of energy can alone terminate the paroxysm? 
That the cause of the emotion may sometimes be 
purely mental, and sometimes physical is, in this 
case, very evident. The state of the body suggests 
the angry ideas, and any slight cause of mental disturb- 
ance at once rouses the brain and circulation to the 
rage point. All our passions are more or less subject 
to the same reciprocal influence, and hence, in the 
New Testament, self-government is enforced by com- 
mands that require us to keep the body in subjection 
while seeking a conformity of will to Divine example. 
To be angry without sin, is the standard of perfection ; 
since such a state of feeling is but holy zeal in the vin- 
dication of God's character, as the faithful Creator, and 
a resistance to whatever would tempt us to doubt or 
disobey Him. 

There are a thousand degrees and kinds of indigna- 
tion : the moral condition, together with the intellect- 
ual cultivation determining the kind ; for an exhibition 
of conduct that would only excite an offensive sense of 
meanness in one man, will produce iu another the 
most earnest expressions of compassionate concern. 
A feeling of anger exists in both; in the former it is 
pride and wrath, constituting contempt, but in the 
latter it is a sense both of the impropriety and the 
danger of the individual offending. In short, every 



118 SELF<-MANAGEMENT. 

emotion acts as a stimulus to the brain, only to elicit 
an expression of the general character and habit of the 
mind; since whatever impulse a man may feel, he 
will act under it, according to his moral and religious 
convictions. Thus the temptations of one man drive 
him to the secret place of the Almighty, while another 
is led captive at the will of the tempter ; one seeking 
comfort in prayer, and another in potations. 

We shall do well to reflect still further on anger, as 
the type of passion. In the human mind, without re- 
ligious motives, anger is essentially hatred ; but a well 
constituted man can allow it no rest in his bosom, ex- 
cept in the form of that constant odium with which he 
regards any thing positively unjust and injurious, as 
opposed to the universal law of love, to which he him- 
self washes ever to be obedient. Love is the proper 
antagonist both of anger and of hatred ; and as he who 
hates his brother is a murderer, devoid of all idea con- 
cerning eternal life, so he that truly loves the human 
brotherhood has passed from death to life, and feels 
the value of the price paid for man's redemption. 
The method by which God reconciles men to himself 
is the only method by which men can be perfectly 
reconciled to each other. There is no other cause of 
peace in the world. Men may, indeed, be too busy in 
their pursuits to quarrel ; but the very eagerness of 
their engagements produces war whenever they come 
into collision without love, because the natural will can 
not then be excited to anger without also awakening 
hatred, and that is a desire which knows no rest but 
in the extermination of whatever opposes it. 

There is an instructive distinction between animals 
and man, with regard to the irrascible disposition. 
As animals are not capable of moral emotions, they 
are incapable of malice ; for this requires intellect and 
reason to engender and to foster it. This fact is illus- 
trated by reference to the tempers of lower animals. 



It may, 1 think, be questioned whether they can ex- 
perience anger in any respect similar to what man 
feels. They resist any opposition to their natural de- 
sires or convenience, but they do not resent it, because, 
in fact, they have no real sense of wrong. Infants and 
idiots, in whose minds moral motives are not in opera- 
tion, are so far instinctive iu their consciousness of 
resistance to the fulfillment of their wilis : however 
they may struggle to overcome and even destroy what 
may stand in the way of their wishes, we hold them 
irresponsible, because they can not compare another's 
claim with their own, nor apprehend the law of right. 
Hence a sense of vengeance, or revenge, properly 
speaking, no more mixes with their emotion than does 
a sense of justice. As they are actuated by instinct to 
resist opposition, so the instant the obstacle is remov- 
ed, or a new object attracts their attention, they are 
appeased. They harbor no ill will. Revenge is not 
a motive in their anger. The lioness robbed of her 
whelps will fight for their recovery, but their restora- 
tion obliterates her wrath in natural pleasure, pro- 
vided the despoiler disappears. Man's anger is not of 
this simply protective nature ; there is vengeance in 
it. He reasons wrath fully, he nurses his indignation, 
he maliciously exaggerates the injury, he reflects his 
own spirit upon it, he pursues the offender, not only 
as a foe, but as a culprit, whose crime can not be expi- 
ated but by a consummate punishment — he seeks his 
revenge. This is the natural course of mau's anger, 
until religion changes the style of his affections, and 
directs his thoughts to God. He then foregoes all 
thoughts of revenge, because he feels that he could 
have no hope of salvation were not righteousness 
necessarily love. 

There is some sense of justice in man, however wild, 
and this appears to be engrafted upon mere animal 
resentment, or that result of constitutional antipathy 



120 SELF-MANAGEMENT. 

by which the different tribes are kept apart, for their 
better enjoyment of the means of life. But the spirit 
of revelation, of reason, and of religion, masters the 
animal in man, and causes him to feel an interest in 
his fellow man, commensurate with his own conscious- 
ness of eternity and God. All we know of man's 
nature from physiology, from the Bible, and from self- 
consciousness, shows us, that in proportion as the will 
is regulated by religion, will our emotions be kept in 
orderly submission, and our conduct be directed to 
right ends. There is no security against the tyranny 
of our passions but from that dominion of the spirit, 
which consists in the formation of correct mental habits, 
under the influence of Divine truths and proper objects 
of affection. These must take possession of our hearts 
and nerves, in order to our safety; for if they do not, 
ideas from evil sources will prevail over us, and that in 
such a manner as neither to be cast out by agony, nor 
controlled by terror. The enemies of God are the 
enemies of man, and the sensuality of our fallen nature 
is so far coincident with evil, that if we refuse to obey 
the exhortation that addresses us as the children of a 
Heavenly parentage, we must be ruled by the hand 
that can not suffer an enemy to prosper, because the 
Omnipotence of Love is pledged to promote only the 
devout and the benevolent. 

The mightiness of those motives which Providence 
has appointed for our government, is strikingly exem- 
plified in that most awful state of human degradation, 
insanity. We will refer to this subject merely to 
illustrate the influence of hope and fear under the 
most unfavorable circumstances. M. Esquirel em- 
ployed the actual cautery, a red hot iron, in rousing the 
dormant will of insane patients, and thus succeeded, in 
some cases, in establishing the rational dominion of the 
mind over the confused emotions induced by disease 
of the brain. Pinel employed a plan, more humane 



S ELF-MAX A G EMEXT. 1 2 1 

but perhaps equally efficient. He directed the cold 
douche, not only as a means of changing the nervous 
action, but also as a punishment, where the mind was 
still amenable to the persuasions of fear, and he has 
recorded that he thus occasionally cured an obstinate 
insanity. But the more philanthropic method is now 
recommended to the world by the gentle firmness 
with which Dr. Conolly manages to engage the minds 
and interest the hearts of the numerous inmates of 
Hanwell Asylum, with employments, and with hopes 
suited to the different states of their affections and 
intellect. 

But it is evident that many of the various diseases 
of the nervous system are of a kind that limits this 
power of appealing to the mind for motives to control 
itself. When disease so interferes with the action of 
the senses and of judgment, as to hinder the right 
perception of time and space by too rapid an excite- 
ment, then a whirling and confused sense of present 
objects begins, and is speedily superseded by imagined 
or remembered impressions. Responsibility is at an 
end — the man is no longer capable of comparing one 
thing with another — he employs not his senses uuder 
the guidance of knowledge — he is no longer capable of 
acting toward others with consciousness of moral re- 
lationship — he is mad as a drunkard. 

But it may be said of any man, that unless he ha- 
bitually employ his faculties and affections on their 
appropriate objects, his experience, however craftily 
acquired, is still but a self-controlled insanity, for to 
live without an intelligent and amiable purpose, is 
really to serve an inferior nature, and to aggravate 
the degradation of the selfhood by the indulgence of 
its depraved desires. 

If self-control, and the subjection of bodily impulses 
be not founded on love to others as well as to our- 
selves, moral derangement is already commenced : 



1^2 SELF-MANAGEMENT. 

there is an established aptitude for monomania. This 
state of mind is usually no other than a perversion of 
intellect, in consequence of moral obliquity, or the 
habit of acting with a view to selfish gratification, ir- 
respective of all that conscience may dictate or relative 
affection may demand. Hence, it is no uncommon 
thing for monomaniacs to charge their crimes upon 
the defects of their education or the mismanagement 
of their childhood. A youth, who, after a course of 
outrages against morality, murdered his father, thus 
addressed the dead body — "Ah, my father, where are 
you now ? You and my mother have caused this 
misfortune. If you had brought me up better, it would 
not have happened."* Let parents so pray, and so 
act, that such a charge may not be valid against them 
before the throne of God. 

Every remarkable instance of deficiency in self- 
management we regard as an evidence either of defect 
in mental culture, or of some disproportion and dis- 
order in the organization by which the mind operates 
and is impressed. Mental derangement is complete 
whenever any disease of the nervous system in any of 
its divisions has so far advanced that the power of the 
will is insufficient to control physical impulse, or the 
impressions of the mind so rapid, that to compare 
ideas, and to determine with consistency, is impossible. 
Habitual misuse of the mind produces mental derange- 
ment as surely as disease in the organs of perception, 
volition, and emotion. The evil influence of bad ex- 
ample, of ignorance, or the immoral training of the 
intellect, encouraging malignant motives of conduct 
while restraining all the higher exercises of reason — 
these, and whatever else pertains to an abandoned 
soul, contribute largely to populate our mad-houses 
with patients of the least curable kind. And we might 
reasonably suppose it would be so, since such states of 

* Georget, Discussion Medico-Legal e sur la Folie, p. 144. 



SELF-MANAGEMENT. 123 

mind imply the habitual and voluntary abuse of those 
organizations which are the instruments of thought, 
will, and feeling. Yet every one of these wretched 
beings who has so much of sense remaining as to 
allow him to attend to his keeper, is controlled by 
moral motive. See the happy hundreds, in their 
festival at Hanwell. Having a purpose to fulfill, for 
their own pleasure, they hold themselves in order, 
and co-operate with their fellows in promoting har- 
mony and happiness ; but the moment any one of them 
loses sight of the motive for self-control, some disturb- 
ance of his passions commences — the demon again 
takes possession of the man, and he must be hurried 
off to his cell until the evil influence works itself out 
by temporary exhaustion of the body. 

Our moral emotions are excited both by physical and 
moral causes, and if our desires be not habitually re- 
strained by reason, and the love of truth and of God, 
pur moral nature is necessarily deranged. As the 
Apostle exhorts us, so in fact we find it necessary to 
abstain even from the appearance of evil. The iion's 
cub is harmless till it has tasted blood, but then he be- 
comes outrageous ; and the evil in our heart may be 
dormant till excited by its appropriate aliment and in- 
dulgence, when it becomes uncontrollable. I refer to 
insanity, as the strongest exemplification of the influ- 
ence of disorderly passions. Even in the York Re- 
treat, 112 cases in 135 arise from that kind of disap- 
pointment which might have been prevented by the 
right employment of the senses, and by proper objects 
of thought. By reference to the records of insanity, 
w r e see, indeed, as by the united testimony of many 
thousands gathered together before us, as from all the 
Asylums of the world, in all the frightful forms of hu- 
manity deranged and demonized, that knowledge, faith, 
and love, alone furnish the soul with competent mo- 
tives for self- management, amidst the many maddening 



124 SEL.F-MANAGEMEKT. 

influences of this world of trial. With our best appli- 
ances, we still rest in the hand of Mercy for protection 
from the evils around us and within us, through the 
disobedience of man. 

Power is proved by resistance. There is always 
something to be overcome in exercising will while we 
are in the body. If it were not so, will would either 
act as a creative power, or otherwise it must be always 
so anticipated by the provision made by the Creator for 
its indulgence, as that moral cultivation would be im- 
possible, which of course can only be the case where 
moral training is unheeded — that is to say, among 
perfect beings, whose wills can never contravene the 
holiness of God's behests, and with whom not a desire 
can be felt at variance with Divine wisdom and benev- 
olence. 

It is well for us that our physical constitution, with 
all its wonderful conveniences, offers, nevertheless, so 
frequent an impediment to the fulfillment of mental, 
purpose, as to force us to reflect on our dependence on 
higher power ; for otherwise malevolence might work 
its way without interruption from the necessities of the 
body, and instead of being sometimes obliged to limit 
its activity to dreams, it would always be vigilantly 
mischievous with the plottings and the powers of a Sa- 
tanic malice and ambition. 

As the existence of the soul as a distinct being is 
proved by its thoughts and by its power over the body, 
so its spiritual standing as a moral agent is proved by its 
self-control, and its resistance to the undue demands 
of those appetites and passions which appertain to its 
bodily habitation in this earthly state. 

The mind must act with whatever motives it pos- 
sesses. Its tendency is to act incessantly, but there are 
restraints upon us. We feel that there is nothing in 
the mind itself to hinder our willing and doing accord- 
ing to our own pleasure, forever. The impediment is 



AXAGEMENT. 125 

Dot in thnt which wills and acts, but in the body by 

which it nets, or in the restraints of circumstances and 
connection to which Providence binds every spirit he 
has formed. 

There being, then, no check upon soul-power in 
thinking and willing but in the motive which deter- 
mines the choice of subjects on w^hich to think, and of 
objects on which to fix our affections, let us exercise 
the reason God has given us, in soberly considering 
what He renders imperative upon us, in order to our 
reception of the happiness which, on fixed principles, 
He has appointed as the portion of every spirit that 
takes its right position in the universe. 

If an insane waywardness may be arrested, and the 
charmed mind be led back to the path of sobriety and 
reason, by the gentle hand of wise, firm, indomitable 
kindness, how mighty and commanding must be that 
charity which is the spirit of Christianity, when made 
to influence as it ought all the relations of life. This 
alone has a touch of efficacy sufficient to dispossess 
wickedness of its willfulness, to attract the urgent soul 
from its chosen misery, and to conduct it to peaceful 
activity. If we possess not this spirit we are not phi- 
lanthropists, but madmen, and have no more right to 
our own way than the inmates of Bedlam, since with- 
out it w r e can not rightly co-operate with others for 
mutual good. 

We are strikingly taught the importance attached 
to our habits of action by observing that our mental 
constitutions are confirmed into evil, by our bodies 
themselves taking on a corresponding condition. Even 
the mimicry of a passion produces a state of nerve 
which excites the very emotion imitated. Garrick 
always, after acting Lear or Othello, suffered convul- 
sions for some hours, from the struggling of his mind 
to resist the excitement of his nerves, produced by 
acting, in keeping with the supposed character of his 



120 SELF-MANAGEMENT. 

heroes. Hence we learn how desirable it is that per- 
sons suffering from any strong emotion, or mental dis- 
order, should refrain from those bodily motions which 
express it, and endeavor rather to divert themselves 
by adopting some action of an opposing kind ; since 
otherwise they may yield to the indulgence of embody- 
ing their feelings in action, until the feelings them- 
selves are prolonged into physical habits, and, by 
mismanagement, actually become confirmed into mad- 
ness. 



CHAPTER VII. 

ASSOCIATION. 

We draw rational motives of thought and action 
from experience through our senses. We become 
conscious of our own existence, and the existence and 
character of other beings, by their impression upon 
ourselves. Sensation is the exciting cause of ideas 
and of sentiments. We, however, interpret impres- 
sions according to a law implanted in our souls. Thus, 
if a child see an angry face, it need not be told what 
it means ; and one who looks on an infant lovingly is 
intuitively met with a responsive smile. 

Man, without possessing senses superior to the 
brute, is endowed with a far nobler faculty of percep- 
tion, by which he associates thoughts with objects, 
and thus nature is representative to him of something 
higher than itself. We conceive from what we per- 
ceive, and that is far more than we can see, hear, or 
handle. 

The human mind is so constituted, that every pres- 
ent object that awakens interest also suggests others, 
and by the law of association excites the remembrance 
of the past or the hope of the future ; and, as both 
memory and anticipation are brought into exercise by 
our intellect, in relation to our own experience, we 
necessarily compare idea with idea with regard to 
probabilities for or against ourselves, and those in whom 
we are concerned. It is, indeed, the business of 
reason to consider causes and effects in their bearing 
upon minds, and therefore all rational research is but 
an inquiry into the design of things, with reference to 
conscious beings, and hence our feelings, in connection 



1£8 ASSOCIATION. 

with objects, will be generally influenced by our sense 
of the importance of those objects in the economy of 
existence. In short, the full revelation of Deity is in 
humanity. 

All truth is really experimental to us ; and before 
we can fully believe any thing, we must perceive its 
relation not only to the senses but to our souls. Our 
faculties are all associated with reason, and therefore 
we infer from things perceived to things possible, and 
that because we can compare and combine ideas ana- 
logically ; hence, from space we infer infinitude — from 
time, eternity — from ceaseless effects, the unbegin- 
ning Cause. Wherever we turn the eye, there infin- 
itude begins. We look into the limitless heavens, and 
feel that time is but eternity, measured to our concep- 
tions by the everlasting revolutions of suns and plan- 
ets ; and perceive that the wonderful beauty and 
beneficence seen in the adjustments of the celestial 
mechanism are not due to extraneous influences, but 
to a Power that operates also in our own being, since 
we find that our intercourse with each other is gov- 
erned by the visible laws of Heaven, and our daily ex- 
perience springs from the correspondence of our 
frame- work with that of the boundless skies. 

The very power which excites our imaginations, 
and conveys to our minds a sense of loveliness or maj- 
esty, suggests also some moral truth, because every 
thought has some personal relationship, and induces a 
desire to reciprocate the emotion we experience with 
some other being. We scarcely behold an object in 
nature, or receive an impression which interests our 
hearts, without thinking of some one who might enjoy 
it with us, or the expression of whose feeling and 
knowledge might not enlarge our own conceptions or 
increase our confidence, and thus tend to fill us with 
still happier emotion. This social tendency, in all the 
operations of our minds, indicates that physical exist- 



ASSOCIATION. 129 

ence, in all its parts, was designed for moral ends, in 
keeping with those laws of our minds by which we are 
drawn into fellowships with each other, while we feel 
ourselves to be equally the dependents of that Provi- 
dence, to which we ought to look in adoration and in 
gratitude, as the source of good, and as our only 
guardianship from evil. In short, we shall discover, if 
we seek the truth, that morality and religion are es- 
sential to the right use of our faculties, even in relation 
to things that perish, and much more so in regard to 
those thoughts which are awakened in our minds by the 
constitution of our senses, in correspondence with the 
outward world, and which abide with our perceiving, 
reasoning, believing spirits, forever. There arises 
not in our intellect a single conception of beauty or 
sublimity, or an idea of good or evil, but from the 
adaptation of the wonders of this universe to the soul, 
as a being capable of loving truth, because it is the 
manifestation of the All-wise, who confers on us tastes 
and sensibilities correspondent with the properties of 
nature, and renders them all, when rightly exercised, 
subservient to our advancement in social happiness and 
the bliss of worship. 

The laws of association are those of our bodies as 
well as our minds. Our nervous systems, and indeed 
our whole natures, are constituted in a two-fold relation 
to all objects : the one, as they influence our under- 
standings; and the other, as they move our wills. Our 
emotions act on our intellects, and our intellects re-act 
on our emotions ; and our habit of mind and nerve is 
determined by the manner in which our desires are 
engaged, for if we do not perceive the beauty of moral 
truths, and are not governed by the love of them, we 
must be actuated altogether by instinct and sensation. 
Whether the impression received by the mind be 
purely mental in its origin, as in a conviction from 
rational induction, or whether it be the mere idea of 
9 



130 ASSOCIATION. 

an outward object, it equally operates on the soul, 
and, so far as it continues to possess the attention, pro- 
motes the formation of our mental character. What- 
ever affects the organs of sense, affects the thinking 
being, and every thought that passes through the mind 
modifies the nervous system, and tends to render habit 
unalterable. Sensation and thought alike influence 
habit, and as the soul is engaged either in pleasing 
itself with the passing impressions of sense, or reflect- 
ing on ideas, so we are becoming either more sensual 
or more rational. The only method of preventing our 
entire subjection to sensual influences is to imbue the 
mind with moral principles, and to fix attention upon 
those facts which reveal to us the moral government 
of the Creator in relation to the consciences of men. 
If we yield not to truth, we shall to delusion. All ap- 
pearances deceive us, except as they are interpreted 
by reason in reference to the designs of God. The 
pillar of cloud and of light which led the Israelites 
to safety, drew the Egyptians to destruction. The 
former recognized the Divine hand ; the latter saw 
only a natural phenomenon. 

If we would arrive at ends worthy of immortal 
beings, the daily course of our conduct requires to be 
regulated on spiritual principles ; for if our common 
sympathies be not pre-engaged and governed by right 
reason, we shall be the slaves of a thousand successive 
masters. If we decide not for ourselves, by choosing 
our associations, on the dictates of a wise and inform- 
ed will, our circumstantial associations will altogether 
determine our lot for us. To be free, we must judge 
whether we will obey the right or the wrong ; and in 
order to this freedom, good and evil must be clearly 
presented to our consciences. But how can we know 
the nature of things, without instruction ? If good and 
truth are not communicated, evil and error will be. 
But there is nothing in sights and sounds of themselves 



ASSOCIATION. 131 

to show us spiritual relationships — Heaven must teach 
us to teach one another. 

The seeds of a rank and dangerous fruition are 
scattered over us by every wind ; the soil is prepared 
to nourish them; and unless pre-occupied by the good 
seed of the kingdom of God, the luxuriance of evil will 
cover the soul. 

Bishop Butler but expressed the experience of 
every spiritual man, when he said that " he was all 
his life struggling against the devilish suggestions of 
his senses, which would have maddened him, if he 
had relaxed the stern watchfulness of his reason for a 
single moment." This exercise of his reason required 
that strong stimulus or motive which religion alone 
supplies. But what shall those souls, destitute of 
such motives, be able to accomplish toward the sup- 
pression of "the offending Adam?" How shall they 
bring the curb of reason to bear upon the mad impet- 
uosity by which they are hurried on to death ? O 
God, be merciful! Thou hast committed the lamp of 
life to the custody of men ; but instead of diffusing 
that eternal flame, having in itself the seed of an 
endless increase, from house to house and from hand 
to hand, like familiar light, they have endeavored to 
hide it in the sepulchers of the dead, or confine its 
illumination to the temples they have built. 

Religious conviction imparts the character to na- 
tions; and every individual mind is mainly determined 
by an apprehension of the Divine Being and His 
requirements, since every new conception of God 
modifies the spirit of man, and gives a new aspect to 
all the facts of his existence. But religion is nothing 
to a man, unless it palpably engage his body as well as 
his mind, his conduct as well as his thoughts; but 
when it is thus practically demonstrated, it takes pos- 
session of all his life and energy, because he then 
really feels it to contain within itself whatever is most 



132 ASSOCIATION. 

interesting to our relationships, and most sublime in 
the hopes of a deathless spirit. It is by the associations 
of mind produced by religious ideas and actions that 
society is governed, and it is the reception of revealed 
truth alone that elevates either masses or individuals 
from degradation and degeneracy. Do we wonder at 
the wretchedness obtruding itself amidst the bustling 
magnificence of our great towns? A slight insight 
into the mental and moral destitution of the neglected 
classes would remove our surprise at their defects, and 
lead us to wonder rather that, with such associations, 
so much of a fine humanity yet remains among them. 
I see now a squalid mother with four children by 
her side, whom she loves like a savage. She wears 
the rags of a widow's weeds ; she lives by the com- 
passion of passers-by, who fling her pence to avoid 
the pain of her presence ; she can not smile, and 
never had any reason to do so ; her heart is strong in 
the feeling of fatality ; she doubts not that her wretch- 
edness is the inevitable appointment of a Power whose 
name she has never heard but in blasphemy, and with 
which the idea of love would be the most unlikely 
association. Her husband died in an hospital, where 
a medical student gave him a tract which he could 
not read, and whispered at last, in his dying ear, of 
Jesus and the resurrection ; and in death that man 
wept and wondered that such words had never reach- 
ed his ear before. His parents and his wife's parents 
were vagabonds and outcasts, and it was never known 
that any of their generation could read. The creed 
of the Egyptians under the Pharaohs was a creed of 
light, compared to the palpable darkuess of their minds. 
That haggard widow can only be a whispering beggar 
in the metropolis of calculation and commerce. What 
wonder ! Two little girls creep feebly by her side ; 
their faces are livid, and withered, and sad; they will 
goon die. The baby on her bosom is also wasting 



ASSOCIATION. 133 

away. But the diminutive boy, about nine years old, 
standing at the corner, begging of those speechless 
ladies with feathered bonnets, has some vigor in him ; 
lie was born when his mother's heart was warmer, 
and his father was drudging on with some hope in his 
ignorance. That boy will, if left alone, probably be a 
thief, and come to the gallows, or be sent to Norfolk 
Island. He is shrewd, quick, sensitive, and already 
heroic in his efforts to cheat mankind, whom he sup- 
poses to be all against him. How shall that child be 
improved ? He dwells in the midst of uncleanness 
and cruelty, catching the contagion of sin from the 
expression of almost every face, and he is in sympa- 
thy with polluted humanity in every form. How 
shall that susceptible young being be transformed in 
the spirit of his mind, so as to grow godlike, while all 
the influences about him tend to make and keep him 
hideous within ? Educate — educate ; stamp burning 
truth upon his soul, show him that you are in sympathy 
with Heaven ; impress the character of Jesus on his 
mind; let him feel the Saviour's love in yours; let 
him see how you adore actively, because the Maker 
of worlds and of souls and of bodies is pledged to re- 
deem us from all evil. Teach him the Lord's Prayer; 
bid him look abroad upon the universe of light, and 
give him the key to its glories ; give him knowledge, 
and you will then furnish him with motive for behaving 
as if he might hope to become an heir of God. That 
boy may be either a Barabbas or a Barnabas. Under 
the guardian influence of Christian associations, and 
the spirit that unites souls in the love of a glorified 
Master, who was once crucified for them, the incar- 
nated inheritance of evil would be exchanged by that 
boy for a godly heritage ; and instead of growing up as 
an Arab among men, he would be able to smile like an 
angel, even if they should stone him, for he would 
still look into heaven and pray for them, 



134 ASSOCIATION. 

Moral law is founded on our sense of ourselves, for 
it requires us to consider ourselves in another's situa- 
tion, and then imagine what would be our feelings, 
and what the consideration that would be due to us 
from others in such circumstances. Because we can 
sympathize, we can act conscientiously. We feel for 
those who exhibit painful emotion, and we smile re- 
sponsive to the joy expressed in another's countenance. 
We detect what is good or evil in another's behavior 
by its effects upon our own consciousness, and our 
wills are excited to detest or to admire, to approve or 
to condemn, according as the action would be person- 
ally agreeable or otherwise, in relation to ourselves. 
Hence our minds are exalted with the tale of generous 
deeds, as in the noble philanthropy of a Howard, or 
horrified at the recital of murderous outrage and re- 
venge. But unless we exercise our fine feelings amidst 
the realities of life, and by reciprocal offices of social 
relationships, our sympathy degenerates into morbid 
sensibility, that finds its indulgence in religious reports 
as well as in romance and the sentimentalism of trashy 
novels. 

Our sympathies are intended to be practical, and to 
bind us with the ties of kindred and common human- 
ity ; but if our fellowships and fellow-feelings are not 
governed by some true, steady, elevating love, we are 
but the subjects of instinctive impulse and of passion. 
In short, if our affections are not held in obedience to 
the directing will, and the authority of God, as the 
supreme object of love, we can not rise above mere 
accidental and circumstantial motives, and shall be in- 
capable of attaining the high standing of beings amen- 
able to the undeviating principles of rectitude and 
truth. We need an unerring standard, and the knowl- 
edge of a will altogether wise and good, in order to 
give a right direction to our desires or stability to our 
conduct, And where is this ? It is nigh thee, and 



ASSOCIATION. 135 

within thee. In fact, unless we purposely submit our 
minds to the guidance of a holy law and a holy spirit, 
we act without intending to be good, and therefore 
without the possibility of moral excellence, or resem- 
blance to our Maker. We can not properly obey the 
precept to love our neighbor as ourselves, until we 
feel that He who thus commands us has a right in His 
nature to our hearts, and minds, and soul, and powers, 
and that because of his inexhaustible good-will and 
charity in personal relation to ourselves. Hence, thus 
to reverence God, to believe and obey Him is the whole 
duty of man. But how are we to distinguish good 
from evil ? By conscience — by that power belonging 
to our reason, which acknowledges the righteousness 
of the law which is love. We can not mistake — it 
is impossible for us to believe that the two tables, 
fulfilled in the word love, can have originated but from 
the mind and will of Him who created the universe, 
because it is impossible for the intelligent beings formed 
by Him to live harmoniously together, and work out 
His plans for their mutual happiness, without obedi- 
ence to that law, for that is the only principle that 
reduces a moral chaos, from darkness, deformity, and 
confusion, into light, order, and beauty. 

To dwell together in peace, we must know why 
we are to esteem each other. In the first place, we 
should feel that we are not called on to judge any but 
ourselves, because we can not. Each one has an ex- 
perience peculiarly his own, and therefore not to be 
judged according to that of another. There can be 
no hope of our agreeing with others, if we dispute 
about our differences, for every one has good reason 
for his own opinion ; but that is the very thing to be 
given up, in order to live faithfully. Others can never 
have seen exactly as we have, and we shall never be 
able to see the same things precisely in the same light 
until " we see as we are seen, and know as we are 



136 ASSOCIATION. 

known." Each man has a world of his own, by which 
all his mental associations have been formed, and to 
which they belong; and therefore it would be foolish, 
as well as unfeeling, to insist on his conformity to 
another's rule, except so far as there may be a wise 
and proper agreement among persons equally ignorant, 
that they may use the best means in their power to 
help each other forward in seeking after truth. To 
be faithful is to be full of love for truth, and valiant in 
defense of it; but the more we see of truth, the less 
critical and the more charitable we shall be, because 
the more we discern of the truth and rejoice in the 
love of it, the more we perceive of the Divine charac- 
ter and feel its charity. The highest angels are the 
most courteous ; they love most. A man would never 
enter heaven, if he were not received there in kind- 
ness. The most gentle in dealing with ignorance and 
prejudice is God himself; and the Son of God would 
never have been the personal and familiar friend of 
Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, and of every confiding 
soul, if He had not been like the Father in heaven. 
If, then, the undefiled Immanuel endeavored to win 
the esteem of guilty beings, because He loved them, 
surely we may well bear with each other patiently, 
and believe, and hope, and act for each other, as with 
the certainty of being required to live together in love 
forever. 

Our intercourse with each other is regulated by our 
notions of time and space. There could have been no 
order or harmony in our associations, had not the Cre- 
ator, with his own hand, measured our movements, 
both of thought and action, on some common principle. 
We are all alike subject to the pulses of time, and one 
mind communicates its impressions to another by ex- 
pressing itself, more or less, in keeping with that mind, 
as regards its sense of time ; for every feeling is as if 
set to appropriate music, and the manner of its utter- 



ASSOCIATION. 137 

ance is more or less either adagio or allegro, according 
to its nature. Individuals do not well agree together 
if their nervous systems are very differently strung, or 
if the expression of their feelings and affections do not 
keep time with each other. If the mode of one is 
quick, and that of the other slow, their states of mind 
scarcely ever correspond ; and if bound to act together, 
they become wonders and trials to each other, and 
perhaps perfectly intolerable : for if they do not deem 
each other somewhat deranged, they at least think one 
another excessively perverse, if not very wicked. Alas ! 
there are few souls brought together so attuned to the 
music of the spheres as to move together in unerring 
harmony and fellowship. But the temper of heaven 
is true love, and that exhibits itself on earth in patience 
and forbearance, rather than in the radiance of smiles 
blending with smiles, and the happy response of heart 
to heart, conscious of nothing to suffer or desire. And 
the worth of love is demonstrated by its power to hold 
domiuion over all the other passions, like a spirit so 
actuated by an intuitive excellence, that it can not be- 
lieve any evil to be indomitable. It meets with oppo- 
sition always and every where ; but, knowing that no 
one can be blessed without its presence, it ever ad- 
dresses each heart according to the state of feeling that 
there is manifested ; for, without sin, it is in the nature 
of love to sympathize with humanity in all its tribula- 
tions, and so to adapt its utterance and expression to 
the agitations of the soul as to seem moved by the same 
impulse, until, gradually prevailing by an insinuated 
might, it brings the wayward spirit unconsciously into 
obedience to a better will. Like a master of harmony, 
it knows how so to mingle its voice with discordant 
sounds as to reduce them to the right key, and to lead 
the listening soul to join, as if from a spontaneous 
movement of its own, in a new and heavenly melody. 
Thus love never rebukes, but in order to subdue ; for 



138 ASSOCIATION. 

it acts in the consciousness that there can be no repent- 
ance unless the heart feel that it has sinned against a 
spirit which always seeks to harmonize and bless it. 

Persistence in the habit of self-love must terminate 
in malignity and the positive and active manifestation 
of hatred, for it is in the nature of a mind always bent 
upon its own selfish gratification to become more and 
more dissociated, and therefore desirous of destroying 
whatever opposes it, since every passion grows in pro- 
portion to its indulgence. And selfish desire can know 
no corrective restraint but in the impossibility of its ful- 
fillment, which is torment and despair, or else in regard 
to other beings, which is, in fact, the commencement 
of its destruction. 

The habit of co-operating with others, even in drudg- 
ery, brings into action the social principle, so that a 
man's impulses are no longer altogether selfish. This 
is exemplified in the case of S. Jackson, who lately died 
at St. Thomas's Hospital. He was employed, with 
several others, in sinking a shaft for a railway tunnel 
at Blackheath. He was at the top of the shaft, which 
was forty-five feet in depth, and had drawn up by a 
windlass a pail filled with water, when, while in the act 
of tipping it over, he fell back. He immediately called 
out, " Below !" and thus warned those in the shaft, 
who saved themselves by moving on one side as he fell 
in the midst of them. Thus the safety of others was 
a consideration with this poor man, in the very mo- 
ment of his deadly peril. And it is true that the habit 
of mutual help is the only efficient check upon the 
natural waywardness of the human will, and therefore 
our Maker requires us always to regard our neighbor 
as ourselves. Those who voluntarily isolate themselves 
from socialities and relationships are living on principles 
unfit for earth, and unless their affections are so set 
upon things heavenly as to absorb their whole souls in 
a continual ecstacy of worship, some less holy power 



ASSOCIATION. 139 

holds them in thrall. In either case they are dead to 
duty, and becoming disqualified for all the happy ac- 
tivities of the near next world, while rendering them- 
selves disagreeable impediments to the business of the 
present. 

Religion is founded on mental association, and man's 
belief in the Self-existent arises from his capacity of 
reflecting on his own consciousness. This feeling of 
being refers him from objects to their origin, and by 
intuition rather than inference, assures the reasonable 
soul of the necessity of an unbeginning, never-ending 
Mind, which perceives and wills through eternity, as 
one infinite presence. The soul sinks beneath the 
weight of that thought into an abyss of interminable 
darkness, until God himself speaks, and calls the spirit 
back into light among the associations of creaturely 
convenience, by which He demonstrates His accom- 
modating kindness. He comes to man in human sym- 
pathy, and demands his heart. He bids him not be 
afraid of the vastness of unsearchable power, since the 
Almighty effectuates nothing but good in gentle mani- 
festations to the trustful soul, and shows it incessant 
reason why it should incessantly confide. And thus 
Jehovah hides the majesty of His might in the homely 
and hourly charities in which he trains his children by 
little and little, as they can bear the revelation of their 
own existence as belonging to the Eternal Source of 
all ability and blessing. Through kindred He teaches 
us kindness; and through humanity, obedient to law 
as love, He illustrates the Divine nature as supremely 
worthy to be loved. A God not humanly revealed is 
no God to man. We may, indeed, obtain, poetical, 
sentimental, and even philosphical notions of a Deity, 
but his moral perfections are lost in his natural attri- 
butes, and his love in his power, unless he be known to 
us as the giver and expounder of laws for the regula- 
tion of our intercourse with each other, in the acknowl- 



140 ASSOCIATION'. 

edgment of bis goodness, and in acting upon the feel- 
ing of that goodness, as a sufficient motive to obedience 
and worship. Without this moral revelation, in per- 
sonal appeal to our own spirits, the Godhead becomes 
an unapprehended and diffused energy, apt to be re- 
duced to a mere word — and that word, Nature. 

In this world, however, our faculties and affections 
operate, as we have said, in a bodily manner. As our 
senses are constructed on temporal principles, so also 
our memories furnish their stores of ideas to the de- 
mands of life, and reason with relation to time and the 
action of our muscles ; thus we move in keeping with 
the movements of objects around us, and thus our in- 
tercourse with those we love is modified by motion, 
for motion is the only means of expressing feeling and 
power. From this universal fact we learn the im- 
portance of wisely controlling our visible actions, as 
they may influence the feelings of others, or embody 
to their view the state of our own souls ; not that we 
should study to be hypocrites, but that we should be 
careful to attain such a condition of thought and affec- 
tion that its natural manifestation in our movements 
should bring others into better sympathy, or at least 
demonstrate to the apprehension of the depraved that 
there is a nobler mode of energy and actiou than usu- 
ally prevails among themselves. But this nobler mode 
consists only with true humility, which is the firmness 
of a mind well grounded, that stoops not to earth, but 
stands erectly upon it, conscious of God's power and 
presence and favor. Abandoned characters can appre- 
ciate this standing, and honor it; but they are very apt 
to imagine the existence of pride as the moving power 
of those who come to teach them bare lessons of mo- 
rality, and therefore they often repel the approach of 
such persons, and scoff at and scorn them most madly; 
but when, by a man's style of action and address, they 
are convinced that he is governed by a simple, true, 



ASSOCIATION. 141 

and obedient spirit, they bow like children in a superior 
presence, and listen but to learn. The success of Mrs. 
E. Fry and Sarah Martin, in teaching the most forlorn 
of beings, exemplifies these observations. 

Unnaturalness, or that artificial mannerism in speech 
or action, which is acquired by minds aiming to imi- 
tate some real or ideal master, is of the nature of this 
repellent pride. INo one is fit to be a Christian min- 
ister who does not honestly descend from all preten- 
sions, and exercise the simple life-gifts with which his 
Maker has authorized him to act upon others for their 
benefit. How often have we seen a spare and chilly 
congregation of barren formalists under the unctionless 
preachings of men who could not forget themselves, 
while pretending to feel awfully alarmed lest sinners 
should fall headlong into perdition. Those that such 
men thus seem to tremble to think of, are, however, 
not such as they usually see before them, for men are 
not snatched from the hand of the mighty slave-driver, 
and gathered into the fold of the Bishop of souls by 
polished and polite rhapsodists, but by men in the 
rough, like John the Baptist, stirred up by the spirit 
of great truths, which have entered into them while 
reading the Bible. Such men have their senses all 
alive to the great facts of nature and of books, for free 
minds are always great in their grasp, and use all their 
knowledge so feelingly as to make all they know tell 
within them upon the formation of their own charac- 
ters, and thus increase their power of influencing, by 
utterance and action, the characters of others. Such 
men are ministers of the Spirit, and they would be 
more numerous were it not for the pride of affecta- 
tion and the disposition to substitute intellect for 
heart-work. 

Unnaturalness in utterance and the distribution of 
ideas into sentences without euphony, hinder useful- 
ness. Men, from an aflfected mannerism, or from 



142 ASSOCIATION. 

aiming at peculiarity, or from too artificial a training, 
disjoint their language in a great variety of ways. 
Some, in pursuing thoughts, forget harmony — while 
others seem to set their ideas so completely to music, 
that their hearers or readers are apt to lose sight of 
the subject, in listening to the sweetness of the mel- 
ody. Occasionally we find a man who speaks and 
writes as if his soul stuttered, so as to form a hun- 
dred periods in a page. The jet from the fountain 
comes in fits, so many times a minute. The conjunc- 
tions are all disjunctive. It is as if a long piece of 
music with all its variations should be staccatoed 
throughout, with a rest at every bar : however em- 
phatic, it is apt neither to be understood nor remem- 
bered. Others take no breath, and rush on like a 
cataract, confounding the waters of life into foam. 
Sober reason instinctively adopts the medium, and 
measures her eloquence by the nature of the subject 
and the state of feeling proper to the occasion. The 
cause of so much ineffective utterance is found in the 
fact, that the thoughts and the feelings do not flow 
together. They are sought apart, and keep apart in 
spirit and in power, although seemingly wedded to- 
gether by sound — vox et preterea nihil. This would 
be avoided if each man expressed his own thoughts in 
his own w T ay, instead of seizing ideas from all sources, 
and trying to fit them with those which he happens 
already to have trimmed in his own staid style. A 
natural ear can always detect an unnatural eloquence, 
and none but the habituated lovers of listening can feel 
the truth inviting them except from lips touched with 
its living fire. 

There is an art in love. The only way of rightly 
influencing other minds is to put ourselves in sympa- 
thy with them. We must use means for this ; we 
must in some degree feel with them as well as for 
them. Their perceived or imagined state must act oil 



ASSOCIATION. 143 

our own emotions, so as to excite an appropriate ex- 
pression in our features, our action, our utterance. 
To withdraw them from unholy passion or disastrous 
pursuit, we must enter into their feelings so far as to 
show that we can sympathize with them in intensity 
of purpose, while superior to them in the direction of 
our wishes and the disposal of our means. We must 
fall into the same key, but only to utter emotion and 
intelligence of a higher order, guided by a will under 
spiritual control ; thus counteracting the evil influence, 
not by vehement resistance, but as sunshine quenches 
fire, by the gentle force of a purer warmth, and a light 
unextinguishable, because it flows from heaven. Every 
feeling tends to action, and we must be conscious of 
the expression in our own persons, and be roused to a 
perception of the thoughts and affections in keeping 
with the excited state of our nerves, before we can 
set our minds to the counteraction of this state. In 
short, we must not only suppose ourselves in the situ- 
ation of those whom we would persuade, but we must 
so far feel like them as to find it necessary to persuade 
ourselves. We must control the very emotions in 
ourselves which we wish to control in others. Not 
till we are brought to this state shall we fully be able 
to influence other minds with our reasonings, for not 
till then are those ideas suggested which are natural 
to the occasion. The associations of our minds will 
then become the associations of those we address, and 
their bodies, as well as ours, will be imbued with the 
same excitement. Thus the eloquent man utters the 
reflex of his own feelings in the contemplation of evils 
that he deprecates. Thus Hall, when he had busied 
and burthened his soul with the arguments of infidels, 
until he almost felt w T hat it was to be destitute of 
faith, exclaimed, «< Eternal God ! on what are thine 
enemies intent? What are those enterprises of guilt 
and horror, that for the safety of their performers, re- 



144 ASSOCIATION. 

quire to be enveloped in a darkness which the eye of 
Heaven must not pierce. Miserable men ! Proud of 
"being the offspring of chance — in love with universal 
disorder ; whose happiness is involved in the belief of 
there being no witness to their designs, and who are 
at ease only because they suppose themselves inhabi- 
tants of a forsaken and fatherless world !" 

The orator felt that apostrophe, and all who heard 
it felt it too. But the plain words of Sarah Martin, in 
the prison at Yarmouth, told as well upon her audi- 
ence, because she visibly felt for them, and could not 
be discouraged, because her faith was in God. It is 
the productive, creative, or poetic mind, that possesses 
power to excite other minds to the degree requisite to 
facilitate the vivid reproduction of ideas in the memory, 
so as to repeat the emotion first induced by them. 
This it accomplishes with great natural ease, from 
its own feeling of analogy, contrast, and comparison. 
Thus one idea is illustrated by another in such a 
manner, that the recurrence of one causes the re-ap- 
pearance of the other, and renders both more distinct 
and more apt to be re-felt as well as remembered. 
The ideas of the persuasive man are not abstractions, 
but objects, that really influence himself, and which 
he desires others to perceive as he perceives them, 
with all the feeling of a spiritual correspondency. Our 
Saviour's teaching was the essence of eloquence and 
poetry, because it was truth spoken naturally, and 
with a feeling reference to the familiar incidents of 
humanity, thus ever leading the mind on to sublimer 
apprehensions of Divine power, and insuring the re- 
collection of the ideas presented by placing them, so 
to say, upon the heart with its daily interests. If we 
do not regard nature as God's storehouse of truths, to 
be employed spiritually, we shall be but low disciples 
of the Great Teacher. Speech is thought and feeling, 
uttered to be heard, and letters, like musical notations, 



ASSOCIATION. 145 

are the symbols by which language and sounds become 
visible ; but the universe is God's uttered thought, to 
be perceived spiritually, both by men and angels. But 
there is a sublimer Word — the Logos — that created 
the heavens and the earth, and keeps them in harmony, 
as the vehicle of spirits related to Himself. The Word 
was madejlesh, to speak as man to man. It should be 
our business to know the meaning of that Word, for it 
must be a personal revelation to ourselves, since it is in 
person and in presence alone that God addresses us. 
Intelligent beings are conscious for the purpose of 
understanding each other; and our Maker imparts 
rational consciousness to us, that we may understand 
his intentions toward us individually. 

Every living creature is governed bv language — 
either in visible or audible signs ; for language is mean- 
ing, feeling, thought, intelligence, actively signified. 
Animals have a language of emotion, but not of thought; 
man's language expresses both. Hence, there are so 
many voices in the world, and none without signifi- 
cance ; and an uncertain sound is itself the utterance 
and the occasion of doubt. If a man set not his heart 
determinate!}* to obtain God's truth, and utter it, he is 
already in a state of mind and nerve indicative of a 
lying spirit — there is nothing decided about him but 
what is false ; he is deluded by appearances, and there- 
fore the expression of his mind is but the utterance of 
deception ; his will itself actively lies, and his tongue 
is set on fire of hell; he contradicts heaven, and helps 
to disorder earth, by propagating falsehood ; he is an 
antagonist of God, and must so continue, unless the 
omnipotent Spirit of Truth speak, through the voice 
of man, in such a manner as to strike the sinner dead 
with terror, and raise him again, with a new and living 
hope, in righteousness, after the likeness of the true 
man — God manifest. 

l^ a man bridle not hi? tongue, whatever be his 
10 



146 ASSOCIATION. 

religious opinions, they are all in vain. Why is this? 
Simply because there can not be a right converse 
without a right spirit. Every man is an oracle, either 
of truth or of falsehood ; he must speak either life or 
death — for God, or against him. The man who feels 
his position will be well assured that indififerentism 
consists not with the order of the world. To be 
negative in one respect is to be positive in another. 
To be in keeping with the Divine mind is the purpose 
of the human mind; but to be thus harmonious with 
Deity, is to will like Him ; and in order to this, we 
must attend to God, listen to His language, and learn 
His love ; for not till we are thus imbued with His own 
Spirit, can we be free in will to serve Him as his sons. 
From the nature of things, and the Maker of all, 
neither the thought nor the tongue of the spiritually 
disobedient man can be at liberty ; there is nothing in 
the universe in keeping with him but evil spirits. But 
love has no limits to its range or its language; it is 
always seasonable ; it may at all times utter all it feels, 
for kindness must belong to its feeling ; and it may be 
ever busy, and travel as far as the light. All it utters 
is truth, all it does is beauty, and all it aims at is har- 
mony and happiness. This love is the response of 
the soul to the Creator, as when He first saw in his 
works the reflection of his own goodness, and the sons 
of God shouted for joy. 

Emotions in man are ideas formed by his mind, and 
are only suggested by objects. The feeling of fear, 
joy, love, hope, is as strongly excited by an imagined 
object as by a reality ; but the imagined object is formed 
by the mind, according to its habit of association with 
real things, or according to a man's faith. Thus one 
man dreads what another desires, because he thinks 
of it with different connections. A Christian, believing 
death to be only a passport to glory, may well long for 
it as a rapture from this wearisome, because wicked 



ASSOCIATION. 147 

world ; and being confident that the Father loves all 
that man ought to love, far better than man can do, a 
believer leaves wife, children, friends, to the gracious 
conduct of His careful hand, expecting to meet them 
purified hereafter. But what can make death beauti- 
ful and blessed to an unbeliever ? How wide the dif- 
ference in the emotion produced by the same object, 
simply because the mind of one clothes it with light, 
and that of the other with darkness ! It is the same 
in regard to all objects. If we would enjoy happy 
emotions, we must have a happy creed. We must 
believe in something besides earthly objects, to receive 
heavenly ideas from them. We must hold Divine 
truths before we can be moved by Divine affections. 
We must trust in the will of God as love itself, before 
we can be so governed by this love as to fear no evil ; 
for as we think, so we shall feel, as long as thought and 
feeling together constitute human experience. Why, 
then, do we complain of our tyrant passions? Our 
ideas are wrong. We see not as we ought; we de- 
ceive ourselves; we receive not God's testimony ; we 
believe falsehood ; the truth is not in us, or we should 
be free ; in the truth of real love, in the truth of real 
hope, in the truth of real joy, in the truth of a real 
Saviour and his peace, we should be free. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

LIKING A>D DISLIKING. 

Mind is the cause of all action and re-action. It 
originates polarity, or the existence of opposites. All 
matter is both negative and positive, because the will 
of Omnipotence is expressed in it. Each atom is re- 
lated to other atoms, so as to be attracted or repelled 
according to their mutual states. It is thus with all 
things, because they are created— with souls as well as 
with bodies. But the human mind is endowed with 
the power of will, so far beyond that of any other crea- 
ture, that it is capable of altering its own state in rela- 
tion to other beings. Thus we use our senses, not 
merely according to the direct and immediate action 
of objects upon them, but in a pre-determined manner. 
We render the passive senses active by thought, and 
change the direction of the vital forces in the brain in 
such a manner, that through it we attend to ideas as 
well as realities, and reverse, so to say, the poles of 
those nerves by which we receive impressions from 
without, so that they seem to convey them back from 
within. According to the state of our wills is our at- 
tention. Our material as well as our spiritual relation 
to objects is affected by our capacity to will, and by the 
manner in which we will. Thus the state of our de- 
sires modifies our power to attend, for desire implies 
the engagement of the mind about some particular ob- 
ject. Inattention is either the result of bodily unfit- 
ness or of intense mental occupation — either excess 
of feeling or deficiency. In either case, there is some- 
thing to be overcome before the mind so affected can 
be duly educated. 



LIKING AND DISLIKING. 149 

We have seen how the obstacle to attention is at- 
tempted to be removed in case of bodily unfitness. Ex- 
cessive mental occupation is self-absorption, and to be 
remedied only by drawing the soul away from its in- 
ward objects, by presenting such external ones as must 
be attended to. The most direct way to divert inor- 
dinate feeling is to put one's self in personal contact 
with the patient — seize his hand, for instance, and at 
once address him with some intelligence concerning 
facts, some piece of news from heaven or earth. Com- 
mon sense teaches us how to obtain the attention of 
healthy children ; we must pleasantly take them in 
hand, and whisper to them face to face ; we must be 
engaged with them alone, and soul to soul, in order 
to disengage them. Men are but children of a larger 
growth, and must be managed pretty much in the same 
manner, with all due allowance for their greater ob- 
stinacy in evil habit. Still let them have something 
real to look at, and with it some evidence of the sym- 
pathy of another spirit. 

We must control ourselves and others on the same 
principles. We must polarize the sense-powers by 
an act of will ; we must determine to set our attention 
upon what we know to be proper objects. If we are 
indisposed, we must do as Johnson did with his writ- 
ings, we must go doggedly to work, and before we 
have done our best we shall be well pleased with our 
efforts. The reason of our pleasure is in the fact, that 
we have put our brains voluntarily into a condition to 
impress our nervous systems throughout with our new 
ideas — our thoughts become connected with emotions, 
we feel them in our bodies. We are constituted to 
enjoy novelties, especially of our own creating. They 
act upon us somewhat after the manner of outward 
objects that are agreeable to us; they are in keeping 
with our bodies as well as minds, in consequence of 
our thorough attention to them, and therefore their 



150 LIKING AND DISLIKING. 

light, their sound, their motion, is ideally and essen- 
tially communicated to us so as to actuate our nerves. 

We willingly polarize ourselves with regard to ob- 
jects, so as to become passive to their action, until we 
are positively affected by them, and are in a state posi- 
tively to influence the minds of others by our own 
force and energy. This is the way that men master 
each other mentally. They attend to things until the 
accumulated impressions overpower them, and to re- 
lieve themselves they must show others what they see, 
and express themselves in words and actions. 

But, alas! those whose heads and hearts are full to 
overflowing of the great things of outward existence, 
can scarcely speak, but they seem like enthusiasts and 
madmen. It is, therefore, essential to the success of 
strong and sensitive souls, that they study all the arts 
of prudence and wisdom, in order to win their way, 
and persuade men to be happier. But with the best 
oratory, and the ablest argument, it is still almost im- 
possible for even a wise man to speak from his heart 
the truth as he feels it, without presenting it in so in- 
dividual a manner as to offend. It is, to a certain 
extent, his duty to do so ; the scandal is not in the 
honest speaker, but in the uncharitable hearer. Minds 
that are equally positive are of necessity repulsive to 
each other, unless they are equally attracted to the 
same point. The truth, as it is personally felt by an- 
other, is, however, the very thing that a party man 
needs to tolerate with cheerfulness ; for unless he 
can so bear it, and even enjoy it, he can never be con- 
verted from the popery of self-opinion and partisan- 
ship to the catholicity of Christdom. 

Truth is intended to neutralize opposition, and to 
be the bond of union between all rational minds; but 
every attachment to mistake induces dislike and anta- 
gonism, because error is of the nature of evil or dis- 
order, and therefore always tending to maintain dis- 



LIKING AND DISLIKING. 151 

union. Where charity is the only cloak a man wears, 
he is ready to fling it over the faults of any person, 
and press him to his bosom, if he have proved that he 
loves truth, by an uncompromising submission of all 
his faculties to its influence, as far as he sees it. 
Truths adapted to the prevailing fashion, and taken 
up and cast off according to convenience, do no more 
to enlighten and improve the world than the fireworks 
at Vauxhall. It may be true fire, but it is manu- 
factured of evil materials, like the pyrotechnics of 
Milton's Pandemonium, to amuse miserable beings. 
Truths, to prevail upon many minds, must be constantly 
about a man, so as to seem embodied in him, like the 
glory about the sun. 

Provided a speaker be understood, he usually excites 
just that degree of emotion proper to his words, and 
which he feels in connection with them at the time 
of speaking. But although the amount of feeling, 
between the orator and those who are attentive among 
his audience, be similar, yet in kind it is very differ- 
ent, for this depends on the previous state of will in 
each individual. Let us imagine, what is real enough, 
that a number of persons, in several mental conditions, 
go to hear the same sermon, and we shall see how 
liking and disliking depend on the state of the mind, 
with regard to love of truth. The preacher is ready 
to open the large Bible, and all eyes are up to catch 
the preparatory language of his looks, and all ears 
eager to receive the first sound from his lips. There 
is an Arminian Methodist, near the clerk's desk : he 
may be recognized by his light smooth hair, sprightly, 
sanguine face, and white cravat without a visible tie. 
There is a swarthy Calvinist, as unkempt as a Scotch 
presbyter, just at his elbow. There is a very gentle- 
manly Socinian, thoughtfully in ambush at the corner 
of the next pew, almost behind the pillar. Verily, 
there is a Friend in the organ gallery. In the pew 



152 LIKING AND DISI.IKIXG. 

with the Alderman, there is a Free-thinker, of a very 
German and biliious aspect: he is foreign correspon- 
dent to a religious society and a great smoker. And 
what is oddest, there is an Infidel by his side, very 
much like him ; and in that curtained pew sits an 
avowed Atheist, with a prayer-book still in his hand. 
The preacher solemnly, slowly, strongly utters his 
text. " The Word was God." He fully feels the 
force of these words, as the language of the Logos, 
and cleaves to the truth with all his might. He elo- 
quently sets forth the idea — Omnipotence in union 
with human nature — God manifested in the flesh. He 
is apt to teach, and all who understand his plain words 
feel with him, just in proportion to their power of at- 
tending. But we may well imagine how the kind of 
feeling is modified by the previous convictions or no- 
tions of the hearers. Thus the Methodist is moved 
by a sense of duty, as if to co-operate with God, who 
is the minister of man. The Calvinist, believing in 
the majesty of Divine action, feels only the passive 
impotence of the creature, forgetful that to be moved 
by God is to move with God's might. The Quaker 
seems to hear the Logos as a voice in his soul, with a 
resolution that his life should speak of it. The Socin- 
ian mentally suggests a correction of the text, suppos- 
ing the original might just as easily be read, "The 
"Word was of God ;" the Rationalist deems the phrase 
a figure of speech, and enjoys it figuratively speaking; 
the Infidel almost laughs as he listens ; and the Atheist 
pants with hatred at what he hears, and curses cant, 
metaphysics, and priestcraft. 

The points on which those who were real Chris- 
tians differed were lost sight of by each of them as 
they thought of Christ; and no doubt, if they general- 
ly thought more of Him than of their private interpre 
tations, they would realize more of what is essential 
to Christian fellowship than can be found in the watch- 



LIKING AND DISLIKING. 153 

words by which parties are kept in their places, as in 
centers of mutual repulsion. If we would in charily, 
or even from the hope of informing ourselves, give 
heed to the truth as it actuates any one, we should 
find more of a common attraction ; for he who attends 
to man for the truth's sake that is in him, attends to 
God Himself, for all truth is His, and this it is that 
draws honest hearts together, because it attracts them 
all to the same center. 

None can attend to truth felt, and therefore spoken, 
without a lasting influence. The speaker and the 
listener are put in bodily and spiritual relation to each 
other, as by the word that said, " Let there be light." 
The thought and feeling of the mind in active utter- 
ance brings the attentive mind into sympathetic action 
with it; and the effect of that action continues for- 
ever in the soul of the man with relation to God, 
whose providence brought him into the position that 
tested the state of his will, and presented motive for 
the higher direction of desire. Hence the moment- 
ous consideration, how and w T hat we hear. Truth is 
either the savor of life unto life, or of death unto 
death. It always meets us, according to our state of 
mind, to actuate hope or to deepen our condemnation, 
and yet it can never say, Despair — that is the teaching 
of truth's strong opponent, that incessantly flings dark- 
ness in the face of light. 

We never yield attention to words without gaining 
good or evil, because it is the design of Providence 
that they should both be communicable by language. 
Hence we see the wisdom and the mercy of the 
evangelical institutions of preaching and teachiug by 
words, uttered audibly or in print. By this means the 
treasury of Heaven's own truth is thrown open to 
the world of spirits ; and thus the sustenance of souls, 
the bread of life, is distributed to dying men. With- 
out the propagation of the Word, yea, the Word that 



154 LIKING AND DISLIKING. 

was with God. and was God, human minds would 
become like a putrid sea, unmoved but by the corrupt 
and incongruous monstrosities bred within its bosom. 
The breath of heaven must ruffle the great deep, and 
the life of light enter into it. The Spirit must move 
upon the face of the waters, that a world for God to 
dwell in may arise out of them. But it is in tongues 
of fire that the Spirit comes as advocate, as comforter, 
and as witness to the truth, and to the triumph and 
glory of our risen Lord ; and it is by the living voice 
that He is exalted in spirit to draw all men unto Him. 
There is no tendency to improve the moral or 
spiritual condition of men except from the diffusion of 
revealed doctrines, because the genius that is not an- 
imated with their living power is really actuated only 
by pride and love of position. Society is constantly 
changing its character, according to the style of those 
ambitious minds that guide its opinions and fill its 
fancy. Some wizard is always scattering his enchant- 
ments, like the Sybilline leaves, before all winds, till 
the nations admire, and are mad. At one time the 
mighty influence comes in the form and with the na- 
tive gloom of a demon, and at others in the glittering 
array of light. Now converting the horrors of history 
into amusement by the colorings of romance, and then 
bidding all classic remembrances speak the language 
of the misanthrope, genius flings its own colors over 
the multitudinous minds that, like the waves of a rest- 
less ocean, arise for a moment to reflect any light that 
falls upon them, and then sink again into a dark eter- 
nity. Whatever the direction of the prominent intel- 
lects of the day — whether merely imaginative, or also 
scientific and philosophical — still the tendency is never 
heavenward, except so far as the truths of revelation 
are standing too mightily in the way to be thrust aside 
without at least some reverence to their greatness. 
The reason why genius without grace only tends to 



LiKIXG AXD DISLIKING. 155 

refine evil is evident — the man of genius perceives the 
spirit of the times, and garnishes his soul, and makes 
it ready, that he may be thoroughly possessed by that 
spirit. Then the fire of infernal enthusiasm is kindled 
within him ; he seizes the ideas prevailing around 
him, subdues them to his own purposes, infuses into 
them his own energy, polarizes them into new combi- 
nations, sees himself in every crystallized thought, and 
then sends back upon society a moral idol formed to 
express its own character, and which, therefore, for a 
time delights it, just as a flattering likeness wins the 
smiles of a vain beauty. The spirit of this world 
never rises above the clouds, except volcanically, to fall 
back again in dust and ashes, death and ruin. But 
that which is above brings with it an organizing and 
beautifying and animating light which attracts to its 
source all those into whom it enters. 

It is necessary for us to be careful, above all things, 
lest the sensual causes of liking and disliking should 
influence our relative and social feelings to such a 
degree as to banish morality. We see that this is the 
case with the baser order of minds — their partialities 
and prejudices being founded on appearances, sympa- 
thies, and antipathies of sensual origin. The only 
means of counteracting this liability is to become im- 
bued with principles of spiritual truth, not notionally, 
but practically, so as to be habitually acting and hoping 
in reference rather to what we know of Divine charity 
than with a view to the gratification of our natural 
tastes of any kind. Thus delight of a heavenly order 
will supplant earthly pleasure, and our desires, expec- 
tations, and faith, will grow in keeping with our appre- 
hension of the beneficence of God, and we shall love 
souls for what they may be, rather than what they now 
appear. If we are earnest in our efforts to obtain a fit- 
ness for the inheritance of light, it must be by a trans- 
formation of character. The beauty of holiuess must 



156 LIKING AND DISLIKING. 

be ou us as the beauty of God, and this is the beauty 
we then shall desire alone to see in all around us. 

If we feel any thing of true loveliness, we shall, above 
all things, promote love. But alas ! men dislike de- 
formity, and hate evil in every one but themselves, 
because they find no mirror to reflect their own moral 
image, and will not look into the law of God. Hence 
they can worship exterior beauty while unconscious of 
intrinsic hideousness. So deeply deluding is our out- 
ward life, that unless we are honest at heart, the more 
that is said and thought of the moral and personal ex- 
cellence of others, the more apt are we to question the 
motives that influence them. Those who are hateful 
are always ready to become calumnious, and those are 
already outrageous who seek for pictured and extrane- 
ous beauty rather than to be beauteous in their souls. 
The most horrible deeds of darkness and cruelty have 
been perpetrated by the worshipers of a pictorial re- 
ligion, and the fiercest defense of nominal public virtue 
has been the fruit of intensest private vice. 

The worship of a beauty, exalted and apart from any 
relation to a man's own soul, is consistent with a zeal 
that leads to massacre and murder. The fifty thousand 
victims of St. Bartholomew were sacrificed to the 
power that presided over imposing forms in the name 
of God. The men who would have bowed to a picture 
of the Blessed Virgin, as divine, could stab a living 
mother with a babe upon her bosom. Because they 
had no beauty in their souls, they pierced again the 
heart of Jesus while they seemed to kneel at his cross, 
and they thought to serve the Son of the Highest by 
execrating those for whom he died. Light had lost its 
meaning to their eyes. As sight is a spiritual sense, 
and we do not behold the objects as material things, but 
only perceive the different degrees of antagonism be- 
tween light and darkness, which we call colors, so these 
zealots of beauty made their own colors out of the dark- 



LIKING AND DISLIKING. 157 

ness that was in them when the true light shone upon 
it. 

The love of beauty is one with the love of goodness, 
in a mind purified by holy truth. But a nice taste 
for the fine arts, as means of pleasure, may prevail in 
a breast without humanity. The mob of murderers, 
with guns and bayonets, in the French Revolution of 
1792, pursued the fugitives from the Palace of the 
Tuileries into the gardens; but they refrained from 
firing on those who, in vain efforts to escape their as- 
sassins, climbed up the marble monuments abounding 
there; and, lest the statues should be injured, they 
pricked down their victims, murdering them at their 
feet, with steel dripping with gore warm from the 
heart. Thus the divine beauty of the human form was 
mangled by lovers of beauty in stone. As usual, men, 
women, and children were butchered at the feet of 
idols ; for devotion to Apollo and to Venus is but the 
madness of pride and lust. The true perception of 
beauty was of course impossible in such savages. Men 
can not see beauty while they merely look at appear- 
ances, because the spiritual relation of things is not 
discerned by the bodily vision. It demands a spitirual 
eyesight and apprehension. Beauty in the abstract is 
truth — the embodiment of moral law : it is an attribute 
of God. But in our relative view of the Divine love 
and power as exhibited in the uses of created forms, 
beauty is, in fact, that order of things which tends to 
preserve the complacency of man ; and, while pleas- 
ingly exciting his attention, encourages the social affec- 
tions. It is, in short, the visible expression of God's 
purpose in nature, the end of which is to promote har- 
mony between thought, feeling, and action. 

Ideas of beauty must be as diversified as minds; for 
every kind of love meets with its corresponding object, 
and every taste finds something to please it. There 
must be an inward, as well as an outward sunshine to 



158 LIKING AXD DISLIKING. 

illuminate the true beauty ; for it is formed of a light 
that is not visible but in union with pleasant thoughts ; 
and hence it constitutes the poetry of existence, be- 
cause it never appears but in association with love 
and hope : if it speak not peace, it is at once trans- 
formed. Wherever there are smiles, there is beauty ; 
and there are smiles all over the dimpled earth and 
the great deep. All nature is beautiful, when seen 
without an idea of danger ; and the vast globe is a 
mass of beauty, when we contemplate it as floating 
along in light, with all heaven about us. 

There is beauty in motion, while it means glad- 
ness — in rest, when it signifies content, yea, even in 
agony, when it expresses faith ; for then we think 
rather of the coming cure than the present malady — 
of the salvatiou, more than of the suffering — the eternal 
weight of glory, rather than the momentary pang. 

Beauty is never seen by the eye of fear, since the 
most fascinating being on earth turns hideous and 
hateful the moment it ceases to suggest ideas of heart- 
rest and confidence. Venus becomes like Hecate, 
when we see through her exterior, and in her heart 
behold the image of Mars. The more lovely the out- 
ward appearance, the more loathsome the felt reality, 
when the smile is known to be a mask. The angel 
hypocrite is seen only as the more infernal fiend, when 
detected through the disguise of light. The only un- 
changeable beauty is sincere love. Something of this 
love appears in all plain, manifest good meaning, such 
as Gods puts into innocent beings, and in all things in 
heaven and earth by which he would teach us to trust 
Himself. Not to know his love is to find his name our 
terror; therefore he every where gives evidence of 
infinite benevolence. 

Beauty, in dead matter, is order, or many parts in 
unity of design, with becoming color. The true beauty 
in human faces and forms is the soul expressing itself 



LIKING AND DISLIKING. 159 

as God's likeness, ready to bless any mind that can 
acknowledge Divine love. 

There is always a sentiment of charity in whatever 
is pleasing, and a mind satisfied with its position is 
always generous. In order to enjoy beauty, w 7 e must 
feel ourselves safe ; the instant we cease to trust, we 
cease to admire. The gentle hand of the young child 
was attracted to the burnished crest of the serpent 
that fed with it from the same cup; but when, in the 
dismay of its mother's face, it was taught that there 
was danger, the idea of a serpent, instead of pleasure, 
inspired terror. The tiger, with its gracefulness and 
waved dark stripes, upon a smooth, bright ground, 
charms us while we see her encaged, asleep, or pla} r - 
ing with her cubs. Her maternal instincts enhance 
her beauty while we think of her as harmless ; but 
should we meet her in the jungle, then she is a 
demon. 

Where we can not trust, we can not love ; for 
amiable thoughts can not be associated with treachery. 
We may, indeed, be conscious of an interest in the 
lineaments of one whose every movement and expres- 
sion speaks of evil, but it is the interest induced by a 
fiend. We might saj'the form was lovely, if we could 
withdraw the spirit, but that is a power that forbids 
thoughts of peace in its presence. The value of 
beauty is estimated by every heart, according to its 
aptness to suggest ideas of happiness. The beauty 
that suffers us not to feel at home with it, soon be- 
comes a hateful distraction; and that is beautiful in 
the highest sense, which elevates our minds with 
heavenly hopes, and seems, by the love that belongs 
to it, to assure us of a perpetual reserve of blessings, 
to be in due time enjoyed. 

Whether we know it or not, we love beauty only 
because we love joy: and it is in vain for the most 
fascinating person on earth to expect to maintain any 



160 LIKING AND DISLIKING. 

but an infernal influence who does not persistingly 
endeavor to promote happiness. Children, before they 
reason, and idiots and creatures without rational in- 
tention, may be loved after an instinctive manner, 
whatever their temper may be ; but voluntary agents 
can not be loved without being amiable, or in the 
hope that the capacity of becoming so will at last be 
established. 

The love of variety is essential to inquiring minds, 
because we know only by comparison ; and our inner 
life is supplied with objects of thought by the scenes 
and sounds which memory furnishes for the employ- 
ment of imagination. This disposition of mind is 
beautifully in harmony with the constitution of the 
world. The word of God in creation was the utter- 
ance of his will toward man. The wondrous exhibi- 
tions of Divine wisdom are seen but as beneficence. 
The arrangements of nature are most marvelous, in 
the means provided for the entrance of an endless di- 
versity of enjoyments through the eye and the ear. 
Analogy and resemblance characterize all the king- 
doms of nature ; but uniformity and monotony, like 
discords, are only admitted as incongruous exceptions, 
as if more plainly to express the benevolence of God 
in harmonizing the elements. 

The more extensive the scope of the mind, the 
vaster is the variety brought within the field of its per- 
ceptions ; and the more minutely we examine the 
economies of existence, the more unsearchable they 
appear. The study of nature is, indeed, the study of 
the Divinity in action ; hence, no mind can be freely 
and devoutly given to the contemplation of realities, 
without obtaining a sublime elevation and an enlarge- 
ment of spirit, with a feeling of life, as if it were one 
with that of the Eternal. But the addiction of the soul 
to any artificial employment reduces and darkens it. 
Circumstances may constrain men into apparent mean- 



LIKING AND DISLIKING. 161 

ness, but they become little, only from the littleness 
of their chosen pursuits. Like the Dutch, we may 
all cultivate for ourselves, so to say, an artificial nature, 
so that the world of God's making may not appear 
before our eyes. But, as Coleridge, I think, says of 
the Dutch — What is the consequence ? They are 
artificially comfortable — in vain do you look for the 
sweet breath of hope and advancement among them. 

Natural objects, whether beautiful or marvelous, 
produce ideas rather according to the state of the 
mind than according to their intrinsic qualities; for 
creation, in all its forms of loveliness or magnificence, 
is intended to impress the soul as a voluntary and 
reasoning being, and therefore it is that nature has 
ever a moral aspect toward man. If he have but one 
religious truth, or a single idea in relation to the 
claims of God upon him, he can not behold beauty nor 
look into sublimity, without some thought or feeling 
being awakened which shall cause him to become more 
conscious of his worth as a creature through whom 
and to whom the Eternal manifests Himself. The 
very joy that expands his bosom, as he gazes upon a 
wide-spread prospect, glowing in the life and light of 
the embracing heavens, fills him with a sense of unut 
terable hope, in the felt power and beneficence of the 
Creator of all things. That hope is a Divine promise 
to him, and while it burns at his heart, he prophesies 
to himself of the glories of a world to come, and con- 
firms his confidence in immortality as if by visions of 
a deathless Paradise. 

Thus the training of his conscience in holy sensibil- 
ity will proceed with the cultivation of his taste for 
natural beauty ; and the enjoyment of God's works 
will aid his reason in drawing those inferences which 
form his religious character, and establish his faith as 
a happy feeling, as well as an intellectual conviction. 

Every object which affects our minds affects them 
11 



162 LIKING AND DISLIKING. 

according to our moral state, or according to the man- 
ner in which our intellect has been cultivated, in re- 
lation to sociality and religion. Our sense of beauty or 
of sublimity is emotional. It is the awakening of as- 
sociation. Some objects, however, are intrinsically 
adapted to excite pleasing, and others, painful feelings. 
Certain expressions of feature and gestures of the body 
induce agreeable sympathies, while their opposites pro- 
duce corresponding emotions. They naturally express 
states of mind with which we are constituted to sym- 
pathize, when our own minds are attentive to them. 
They are the motives by which our Maker designs to 
influence our social behavior, and by these we are 
preserved in relation to our fellow beings. But if 
those truths which teach us our relation to our Maker 
are not fixed upon our minds, the expressions of life 
and feeling in our actions will always be perverted, so 
as to render our whole existence evidently sensual ; 
for every pleasure apart from its moral and religious 
purpose, is merely a temptation and a snare, detaining 
the soul from the enjoyment and the end for which 
it was created. 

There are other objects — those inanimate, for in- 
stance — to which ideas of beauty maybe attached con- 
ventionally. The whole series of things, all the uni- 
verse within our vision, may be regarded as the means 
by which our understandings are aroused, through 
emotions more or less associated with our desires. 

In short, we are drawn toward hope or fear by 
every thing we contemplate — we are either disposed 
to entertain a hopeful complacency, or we become 
more susceptible to apprehension. Thus the ver- 
dure and the bloom, the songs of birds, the living 
streams, the blending of sparkling light with the bil- 
lows of a summer sea, and the varied features of a 
picturesque and rural prospect, encourage sentiments 
of kindliness ; and the heart, if not possessed by some 



LIKING AND bISLlftlHtt. 163 

painful bosom-interest, is ready at once to respond to 
any face that beams pleasantly upon it, and cordially 
to reply like a friend, to any one that greets it with 
a word of the bright weather. But when clouds 
gather, winds howl, waves roll, or if we find our- 
selves in a position otherwise sublime, if we speak to 
each other, it is with more or less of consternation and 
of gloom. 

Unless we have an inner motive to abstract our 
minds, our thoughts are always in keeping with the 
scene around us ; and hence we perceive the reason 
w r hy men erect temples of stately or solemn archi- 
tecture, with a view to encourage religious emotion, 
and that the place may accord with the intention of 
assemblage. A want of keeping between the object 
of a building and its ornaments and proportions is, 
therefore, a want of taste in the builder, and it re- 
quires a spirit devoutly engaged at heart to be superior 
to the influence of such incongruity. The fact that 
souls are so strongly influenced by appearances, is a 
sufficient motive for the study of those arts by which 
the properties of nature are made to bear upon the 
feelings of society. God himself has sanctioned such 
studies, and inspired men with skill to construct ed- 
ifices, in detail and in general, suited to promote those 
solemn ideas which accompany devotion. To neglect 
these considerations is, therefore, to neglect Divine 
teaching. Our Lord Himself suited his discourse to the 
position of his disciples, and followed the intimations 
of nature in the sublime doctrines which He taught 
in the temple, by the sea, or on the mountain side, 
with the Divine magnificence of heaven and earth 
around Him ; and the successful propagation of truth 
has always been influenced by these adventitious or 
rather Divine aids, and the direction of the mind im- 
pressed by objects in nature, and in those suggestions 
of nature which are supplied by art. 



164 LIKING AND DISLIKING 

Our attention is first arrested by that which appeals 
to our emotions, before we regard arguments ; and 
our affections must be aroused before we can perceive 
the validity of reasoning. We must feel that we are 
naturally God's creatures before we can apprehend 
our spiritual relationship; but if we are spiritually 
minded, the humblest hut, equally with the noblest 
fane, becomes an appropriate place of worship ; and 
yet not a temple on earth has ever been erected that 
could reach to the idea of Christian worship in its 
august simplicity, holiness, and love. There is not 
majesty enough even in the starry dome of heaven ; 
the rosy light of morning upon the mountains, and the 
sunshine reposing upon fields of ripening plenty, are 
not sufficiently suggestive of the peacefulness, benev- 
olence, and hope of Christianity. There is nothing 
visible vast enough to indicate its dominion, nor a 
flower fair or frail enough to show forth the fostering 
gentleness of its Omnipotent Spirit. The Virgin 
Mother, clothed in light, with the Son of God upon 
her bosom, is its tenderest embodiment; but we can 
not obtain a sufficient glory in the pictured charity, 
the colors of light can not form faces so radiant as to 
image in our eyes even our faint ideas of Divine love 
made human. It is better seen in death than in life ; 
for the love that is Divine must teach us to believe 
that God will raise the dead, even as at first he breathed 
life into the dust in His hand. It brings us with Mary 
to gaze into the tomb where Jesus was laid, and where 
the angel stood in light to say that He was risen. 
Hence the mature Christian feels that his heart is 
but mocked by attempts to excite its devotion by earth- 
ly objects. He can look at beauty and magnificence, 
in their symbols, and be thankful ; but he realizes far 
more than these, because his spirit is truly worshiping 
in that heaven where no temple is seen, for the Lord 
God Almighty and the Lamb are the sanctuary there. 



LIKING AND DISLIKING. 165 

In proportion as men have been influenced by that 
pure spirit which freely breathes in Christianity, have 
they exhibited in their writings an admiration of nature 
as the work of God, and, while honoring the power, 
adored the love that constitutes the universe as the 
abode of various intelligences. Whenever asceticism 
has taken the place of active Christianity, the poetry 
as well as the science of existence has alike been 
darkened with artificial gloom, and the cloudiness of 
fanaticism has usurped the splendor which God de- 
signed to occupy the visions of the soul; for the soul 
was made expressly to be informed and delighted by 
Divine truth, as seen both in His handiwork of creation 
and the wisdom of His written word. Artificial and 
fictitious religion fastens fetters of iron on all the fac- 
ulties of man, but that of truth calls the spirit forth to 
the fresh air, and to breathe vitality in open, happy 
light, and bids it contemplate what Benevolence has 
done to secure the joy and gratitude and praise of all 
reasonable creatures. If, therefore, we meet any or- 
dinance against the intercourse of souls with souls, or 
the slightest interdict opposed to the spirit of inquiry 
after either natural or revealed truth, w T e may be as 
fully assured as if God himself had instructed us, that 
such ordinance and such interdict is not of Divine but 
of human, if not demoniac origin; for the doctrine of 
Christianity denies that man can attain his true nobility 
without research, and without seeing and feeling the 
difference between God's teaching and all erroneous 
and imaginary devices. 

We are called to the light; let us walk, then, as 
children of the light. It requires only the courage of 
trusting God to act worthy of our vocation. Wherever 
we may dwell — in the luxuriance of the south or the 
chill of the north — we shall see enough in living tribes, 
in the forms and colors of vegetation, in the flowing 
waters, in the verdant plains, in the proud hills, in the 



166 LIKING AND DISLIKING. 

sublime mountains, in " those eternal flowers of the 
skies'' — the stars, in the endless heavens, and in the 
great deep, to lift our spirits from the visible to the 
invisible, and raise our thoughts above this grave of 
things — from moving time to steadfast eternity, from 
ourselves to God — in whom our hopes ma} r rest for 
fruition, far beyond what the brightest and highest 
faith can promise. Thus we receive from the Parent 
of our spirits, if we trust Him, a sustaining consolation 
proportioned to the need we may experience in our 
pilgrimage. The beauties of nature are subject to 
decay ; darkness may obliterate the skies, and a dart 
from the clouds may quench our sight, but there is 
no interruption to the benevolence of God, or to the 
peace of those that trust Him. 



CHAPTER IX. 

TEACHINGS OF LIGHT. 

As, in treating of sensation in this place, it is not 
the object to teach its physiology, but merely to point 
out the influence of moral motive upon the formation 
of ideas, it will suffice to direct our thoughts more 
particularly to sight, since this is the most intellectual 
of our senses, and the medium through which we or- 
dinarily become conscious of our moral relation to ex- 
istence. Without light — poetry, philosophy, litera- 
ture, and religion must have remained unknown to 
man. But we are not appointed like our kindred 
worms to house ourselves in darkness. Our souls, 
familiar with the light, expatiate in immensity, and 
converse with beauty. 

The direction of the eye expresses the state of 
man's mind, but it turns not to Heaven except when 
we are excited by strong emotion, or by the urgent 
longing for comfort, light, and truth. Every feeling 
has its appropriate action. Adoration and pathos nat- 
urally express themselves in much the same manner, 
by raising our eyes upward, because these states of 
soul call those muscles into action which are peculiar 
to the eye of man. No other creature is formed vol- 
untarily to look upward ; but devotion and agony 
equally constrain us to turn from the troubled earth 
toward the calm of eternity and heaven, as if in our 
necessities to demand the help of the Highest. 

Light was made for us, and therefore the soul looks 
for it in all directions. It comes to us in its sevenfold 
harmony from above, and the subiimest vision of our 
spirits is heaven itself. Whether we contemplate the 



108 TEACHINGS OF I.! CUT. 

abyss of stars, the serene moon walking in her bright- 
ness, or the sun enthroned in his glory, we are almost 
ready, in the bare sensation of unsearchable magnifi- 
cence, to bow in worship to the visible majesty above 
us. Thus the earliest idolatry began when men look- 
ed up to heaven, and forgot their origin. But we have 
been spiritually instructed, and in spirit would adore 
the uncreated Light that in the beginning called all 
things into being. Thus the eye becomes the instru- 
ment of intelligence, and by its aid we perceive that 
the moral law is founded in the nature of physical, in 
relation to rational existence. The Commandments, 
written by the finger of God on the top of Sinai in the 
tablets of granite, and also in the heart of man, are 
but a condensed transcript of the law of the universe, 
brought into direct accommodation to the human so- 
cialities of earth. The grand code of God, as the 
moral Governor of all worlds, is inscribed by his own 
hand upon the starry firmament of his power, and all 
existence is the development of law. If we ascend 
into the heavens, He is there. In the Father's house 
are many mansions; the glories of the revealing night 
. speak of the household of our God. Suns and sys- 
tems indicate in light the overflowing beneficence of 
their present Maker, and it is not in the power of our 
reason to believe that the associated spheres revolving 
together in their varied radiance, and modifying sea- 
sons to each other, as they roll on in eternity, are 
without the doctrines of love among them. We can 
not believe that the ten thousand beauties unknown 
to earth, with influences innumerable, effectuating ac- 
commodations intricate and excellent beyond concep- 
tion, belong* to dead and spiritless worlds. No : a 
plenitude of goodness is for beings who can enjoy 
gifts, and praise the Giver. Those arrangements, so 
vast, various, and sublime, for the unceasing manifest- 
ation of benevolence and power, must be intended to 



TEACHINGS OF LIGHT. 109 

meet the demands of moral and intellectual existence. 
The myriads on myriads of worlds must teem with 
appropriate inhabitants, who learn from the reciprocal 
ministrations of Heaven that the Creator is among 
them. We can not look up, and think otherwise than 
morally, for the socialities of heaven are visibly ex- 
pressed in the very light that enters into our souls ; 
and as surely as light is every where, and every 
where brings visions of Divine beauty to minds formed 
to receive them, so surely must we conclude that the 
worlds above and on every side of us are the abodes 
of beings having some discernment of their relation to 
each other and to their Maker. 

There must be ideas among them, and ideas are but 
the responses of reason to the intentions of the Crea- 
tor, in the existence of objects. Ideas, therefore, must 
be attended by corresponding emotions and affections; 
and wonderful beyond our thoughts must be the pleas- 
ures of beings who reciprocate sentiments of joy 
and of knowledge, in their contemplation of the mag- 
nificence, wisdom, loveliness, and love, revealed every 
where in the scenery and arrangements of the heavens. 

All objects and all elements are but adaptations to 
the social necessities of mind. We may not be able 
clearly to infer the moral and physical constitutions of 
the dwellers in those far-off worlds, but we are certain 
that all their experience in the marvels of creative 
skill, so richly at work for their bliss, must largely 
teach the universal lesson — " God is love." All who 
can receive this word so far apprehend the Divine na- 
ture, and must feel that law which says, He alone is 
worthy of supreme affection who bids us love one an- 
other. This, at least, is the law, propounded to man ; 
and turning from the heavens to our homes, we feel 
that beings incapable of love are incapable of reason 
and of happiness. Moral beauty is the image of God, 
and we minister His spirit only when we enjoy and 



170 TEACHINGS OF LIGHT. 

diffuse His charity. The world that is not constituted 
on this plan must be a world of darkness and disorder 
— a place of minds that would hide themselves from 
God, because they will not trust Him. Would they 
but think of Him as love, they would ask and feel for- 
giveness, and then walk on rejoicing in light. 

Thus, whether we look to the associations of heaveu 
or those of earth, we return, at last, to our moral con- 
sciousness, and therein seem to stand as upon the in- 
terminable firmament, from whence we every where 
perceive the operation of the same law wrought into 
the very materials of existence, as well as into the very 
being of our souls — love — the bond between the Crea- 
tor and the creature, without the felt indwelling of 
which it is the manifest will of God that none shall be 
blessed. The absence of this principle is thatouter dark- 
ness, in the unsearchable depth of which every spirit 
wanders who in selfish loneliness seeks a path to which 
wisdom has not pointed. There is no curse but in the 
essential malediction which the perverse heart utters 
on itself, and on all that oppose it ; for the mind that is 
willfully set upon merely obtaining its own way, finds 
the happiness of others is apt to be an impediment to 
its selfish aims, since the law of righteousness is the 
law of charity, embracing ail alike: hence disobedience 
is always associated with wrath, and its anger is so mad 
that it always acts as if it thought the law was hate ; 
for to be at variance with heaven is to depart alike from 
love and from truth. 

All power is God's ; we see it in creation, we feel it 
in our minds, and our very eyesight informs us that 
love and power are infinite, and therefore impartial. 
We turn toward the. heavens, and the boundary is not 
there, but in ourselves : we find no limit but in our capa- 
city to expatiate, and if in thought we would follow our 
vision into space, and pass on, we become conscious 
that we have entered into eternity, for there is no 




TEACHINGS OF LIGHT. 171 

chronology among the stars, and time as well as space 
is lost to our perception, ere we can take the first step 
along the pathway of unutterable glory that opens be- 
fore us. Thus is it also in every attempt to contem- 
plate the Divine attributes — " The center is every 
where, the circumference nowhere." 

Begin where we may, there the eternal is before 
us. Wisdom, and power, and love, are visibly infinite 
and equal ; though we could calculate with an angel's 
skill, we should find the hosts of heaven beyond our 
arithmetic. But yet, wherever we might fix our ob- 
servation, we should perceive each system moving in 
all its intricate circuits with an equilibrium so adjusted 
as to prove that the touch of Omnipotence is there ; 
for no other hand is gentle enough to hang worlds upon 
nothing, and roll them on in their inconceivable vast- 
ness and multitude, upon lines finer than an atom of 
light, through billions of billions of miles, undeviating 
and unbroken, both in their progress and their revolu- 
tions. And this governance would not be that of power 
and wisdom if it were not also that of love, for, as be- 
fore observed, all the adjustments of matter must have 
been induced for the sake of minds. We can not im- 
agine that the distant glories that gleam in faint star- 
light on our homes are wasted. There are intelli- 
gences everywhere to kindle into ecstacies of thought, 
amidst the sublimities and beauties that crowd around 
them, and bring into their existence the consciousness 
of the universal life. There must be reason where 
there is divinity, and there, too, must be worship, mo- 
rality, and religion — for the mind that owns not God, 
both in thought and in deed, is not intelligent, but 
unenlightened, and either brutal or insane. 

Whether with the telescope we search into the end- 
less magnificence of heaven, or with the microscope 
we peep into worlds of infinite minuteness, all we see 
is that the Almighty is there, and therefore we infer 



172 TEACHINGS OF LIGHT. 

that created minds are every where cognizant of the 
movements of His might, for His handiwork is the 
revelation of Himself to beings that can discern His 
power and learn somewhat of His wisdom. The glim- 
mering intuitions of our reason thus assure us, with a 
faith immovable, that Omnipotence can only evince 
himself as love, and that He produces intelligent crea- 
tures only to supply them with the means and the mo- 
tives of happiness, by expressing His will in His works. 

The glory of God is a visible thing. When Moses 
said, " I beseech thee, show me thy glory;" Jehovah 
answered, "I will cause all my goodness to pass before 
thee." 

There is much indefinite use of this word, glory ; 
but as At is applied to the ineffable Author of all things, 
it can mean only what he has done, and the only way 
in which we can glorify him is to learn his character 
as expressed in his acts, and so to regard his character 
as to become transformed into its resemblance. To 
reflect God's light is, in short, to be glorified ourselves, 
and this is the manner in which the fountain of excel- 
lence is revealed in us. Whoever receives his sup- 
plies from this source becomes at once an overflowing 
spring of joy to other beings, for the glory of God is 
love and light, and their nature is everlasting diffusive- 
ness without diminution. 

I reiterate my thoughts, because I feel them. Cre- 
ation is a fact full of this meaning — power, wisdom, 
and benevolence are one ; and they equally announce 
to us also, though we seldom regard the truth, that 
happiness can be found only by acting and thinking in 
consistency with the working of this wisdom, power, 
and love, as expressed in the natural ordinances of 
earth or of heaven. The law of blessedness, thus fixed 
in the very nature of things, is the law of moral being, 
and declares itself unalterable ; and therefore, if a will 
be found in any world at variance with that law, it 



TEACHINGS OF LIGHT. 173 

can find no refuge from its doom of disappointment and 
perdition, but in a change of purpose, or by seeking to 
have desires consistent with its creaturely position and 
a life of faith upon the loving hand that can restore it to 
its proper place. The Almighty, because He is Love, 
must of necessity oppose the disobedient, and can only 
overcome the perverse will — perverse either from ig- 
norance or design — by removing the means of its per- 
versity, or by controlling its movements by still per- 
sisting evidences of loving-kindness and tender mercy, 
in always presenting impediments to its progress in 
misery. Thus we find, from our experience, that the 
physical government of God is never separated from 
his moral government, except in the abstract specula- 
tions of our bewildered minds. All we see assures us 
that we are in soul naked, and open to the scrutiny of 
God. — He who formed the eye, shall not He see ? He 
who created light, shall not he perceive ? 

We might profitably follow out this stupendous sub- 
ject into its details in relation to human duties, but every 
reader will find arguments ready in his own thoughts. 
This much may here be affirmed — there are no safe 
data for metaphysical investigations but in revealed 
truth ; and therefore we shall save ourselves from a 
world of trouble, by grounding our reasoning upon rev- 
elation, and conforming our conduct to its light. It is 
true, that what we find received under this name is a 
humanized inspiration; and it would be useless if it 
were not so, since man can learn only in a human 
manner. God's truth speaks to common sense ; we are 
required to believe only what is demonstrated — not, in- 
deed, always to our eyes, but to our souls. By all we 
know of history, and by all that the highest class of 
minds have been able to discover in nature or in them- 
selves, by prophecy and by fulfillment, by necessity and 
by supply, by all we are and all we would be, we are 
bound to the Bible as the book of God. Its doctrines 



174 TEACHINGS OF LIGHT. 

are in keeping with all the intelligences and teachings 
of the universe ; but without its culminating truths, all 
the light in all the worlds would leave such beings as 
we are as spiritually blind as ever, and utterly unsound, 
unsafe, unsatisfied. The religious men of old may 
have known but little of astronomy, but yet they knew 
the meaning of the heavens. To what degree Job, 
Moses, David, and the Prophets were informed of the 
physical laws which regulated the movements of the 
glorious hosts, we can not learn, but they saw and un- 
derstood that the heavens and the earth formed but one 
universe in the hand of the Almighty. They could not 
weigh the masses of rolling orbs, with Newton, but 
they believed in Him who held them in the balance, 
appointed their places, and directed their influences. 
They felt His power was infinite, and therefore con- 
ceived no limit to His dominion, and named eternity as 
His abode. 

Though the Cosmos has been reduced to mathemat- 
ical admeasurements for us, and the ideal statistics of 
the skies are familiar in our schools, yet it would in- 
deed be a feeble sentimentality to talk of mental culti- 
vation taking the magic charm from the mysteries of 
nature; but alas! men are too apt to enjoy a sub- 
lime idea of the universe, while forgetful of Him who 
" telleth the number of the stars, and calleth them all 
by their names." This, however, is not the fault of 
knowledge, but of ignorance : for in contemplating the 
manifestation of creative power, the demands of crea- 
tive love are overlooked, unless the spirit that per- 
ceives the order of the visible heavens also perceives 
that natural systems are but the outward symbols of 
inward and spiritual relationships. But the knowledge 
of the one conducts to the other; and as surely as the 
knowledge of natural phenomena is increased, miry we 
be assured that moral truths are also to appear ; since 
general mental development is no accident, but an ac- 



TEACHINGS OF LIGHT. 175 

cordancy with the Divine intention, that determined 
that all human history should subserve to the explana- 
tion of prophecy, and all science tend to demonstrate 
that the plan of nature is that of Providence, to prove 
that man was placed upon earth, and scattered over its 
face in families and nations, with reference, from first 
to last, to some grand consummation, which shall re- 
veal the character of God as especially concerned with 
all humanity. 

Thus informed, a youth stood on a hill at Bethlehem, 
waiting for the stars, and it was in his soul to sing, with 
a burst of adoration, " When 1 consider thy heavens, 
what is man, that Thou art mindful of him ;" and that 
youth was fit to be a king of God's anointing. Though 
he seemed among men but as an amiable lad, his mind 
in worship had been conversant with the wondrous 
works of creation ; and therefore, though still a rustic 
and a shepherd, something divine was manifestly in 
him. He could touch the chords of human sympathy, 
and utter melodious notes in praise of God, so as to stir 
the souls of others, as if with involuntary responses to 
his own spirit; and when the defense of the feeble 
demanded prowess, his knowledge of the ways of Deity 
filled him with a fearless virtue. The Lord of Heaven 
corresponded with his heart, and called him the Be- 
loved ; and his heart replied, " I will love thee, O Lord, 
my strength." The heavens declared the glory of God 
to him, not only as the Creator, but also as the Law- 
giver. (Ps. xix.) He heard within him the intelligence 
uttered by the day and by the night; and it prompted 
him to meditate acceptably on the enlightening ordi- 
nances of Jehovah, as if the voice of the Omnipotent 
were addressed to his conscience, aud caused him to 
pray that sin, presumptuous sin, might not hold do- 
minion over him. Thus viewing the Almighty at work 
among His worlds, he at once associated the idea of the 
Power every where present with the Love that de- 



176 TEACHINGS OF LIGHT. 

manded obedience in the daily duties of his life. This 
idea was doubtless the source of that dignity which 
visibly ennobled his youthful manhood, and made him 
notable in Israel, as one honored of Jehovah. He 
wished his thoughts and the language of his life to be 
in harmony with the mind of his Maker, as the source 
of power and salvation ; and therefore, though beguiled 
by the treachery of his own heart, he nevertheless 
heard the reproving voice, felt at once his contrariety' 
to the holy law, abased himself, bewailed in secret 
his guiltiness of soul, and sought prevailingly the re- 
newal of a rightful spirit. Hence he was qualified to 
speak the words of inspiration, and to pour the over- 
flowings of his heart into the ear of Heaven, in songs 
of praises and pleadings of necessity, which mingled so 
eloquently with the music of his harp, that adoring 
angels might linger to listen, while demons were dis- 
pelled, and all things in nature seemed to feel him call 
upon them loudly to laud the righteous Ruler of all 
intelligence and of all elements. 

In the Bible we are not directed to mental imagin- 
ings, but to see the glory of God in what He has 
outwardly and openly done. David thought and sung 
in the spirit of the universe ; hence he says of Jehovah, 
*« The heavens declare bis righteousness, and all the 
people see his glory." (Ps. xcvii. 8.) And therefore 
those who trust in idols are called on to turn to Him. 
" The heavens declare the glory of God, and the 
firmament showeth His handiwork," is but the com- 
mencement of his song of praise. *» Day unto day 
uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowl- 
edge." And then, as if the universality of the Divine 
beneficence were shadowed in the sun, he appeals in 
rapturous words to the world-wide diffusion of its 
light and warmth. He saw therein the type of truth; 
and, with seeming abruptness, he turns from the tab- 
ernacle that God had set for the sun, to show forth the 



TEACHINGS OF LIGHT. 177 

glory of the perfect law. The exordium of inspiration 
concerning the visible majesty of heaven was a fit in- 
troduction to the spirit and meaning of all the Cre- 
ator's manifestations — the enlightenment of man and 
the removal of moral darkness. — " Great and marvel- 
ous are thy works, Lord God Almighty,*' is but one 
part of the vast anthem of immortals ; Just and true 
are thy ways, thou King of saints.'' completes the 
parallelism of praise; for in the greatness of Jehovah's 
works is seen the righteousness of His ways. 

What made the difference between David and La- 
place ? Motive. Laplace scrutinized the universe with 
only himself before his eyes; David looked up only to 
adore God. Laplace never mentions the Might that 
made the heavens ; he concerned himself only with 
their mechanism, and, though with an angel's ken he 
gazed into the temple of Omnipotence, it was not to 
worship, while David felt the sublimity of the bound- 
less glory but as the shekinah of his Maker. 

Now, as in nature, so in the book of God, there are no 
sentimentalisms and no mistakes. These are man's, 
but both nature and the Bible tell the truth, and tell it 
to us, if we would listen. The one shows us our little- 
ness, the other our need. They both say that science 
is not salvation, and that truth is a practical and per- 
sonal matter. The Creator thus addresses us by all 
visible things, to awaken moral motives into activity, 
and leads the mind at every glimpse to further light, 
until we see that the universal light, is the emblem of 
God, and that as there is but one source of vision to 
all eyes, so there is but one source of righteousness 
for all intelligences. 

We can not imagine the power that set the uni- 
verse in action, but we feel that it could neither have 
begun nor been exerted. Motion, space, duration, as 
manifested to us in what we behold of God's plan of 
action, are yet all inconceivable. We may multiply 
12 



178 TEACHINGS OF LIGHT. 

moments on paper, and calculate the rapidity of light 
as it travels from world to world, but the numbers em- 
ployed appear only as figures; their sum is not appre- 
hended as an idea by the mind. Light flew from the 
stars, as they were produced by Omnipotence, in all 
directions, at the rate of 200,000 miles in a second, 
and with this speed the light of those stars next and 
nearest to our system would probably require thirty 
millions of years to reach our eyes. Such is speed, 
such is space. What do we learn from these physical 
facts? Only this — the Almighty has to do with us, 
and has created light that we may look to Him. 

We perceive that time and space, past and to come, 
are identical with regard to Omniscience and Omnipo- 
tence, since reason, in thinking of Deity, can not limit 
Him to possibilities, as we are limited by our creature- 
ly organization. The Eternal sees not His universe 
on mechanical and material principles, as it presents 
itself to our senses. He sees things as they are, but 
it is in the nature of the senses to modify things ac- 
cording to their mechanism; thus the world wears 
quite a different aspect to two persons, the convexity 
of whose eyes in the slightest degree differs. What 
is real and true must be so to thought, and we — with 
awe may we say it — must perceive as God perceives, 
to distinguish the possible from the impossible, the true 
from the false. As we are situated with regard to the 
external world, we can not think, and at the same time 
use our senses, without being subject to organic laws 
or to the movements of things which of course can 
take place only in time and space. Even when we 
withdraw our minds from sensation, we still attend 
only to one idea at a time. We therefore can not 
perceive things as they are — God alone can do that, 
because He alone perceives without succession or in- 
terruption, and therefore without period, pause, or 
place. He who knows all things at once, alone knows 



TEACHINGS OF LIGHT. 179 

them as they are, because in fact there is no break in 
the universe ; and no mind can be taught the truth 
but by Him who addresses spiritual arguments to our 
reason. 

To be every where equally, and to see every thing 
equally, and that forever, can not but be possible to 
Him by whom all things consist; and whatever is pos- 
sible with God is not only practicable, but a fact. In 
short, whatever men call impossible, is that which 
Deity has done and is doing. He sees, at this very 
moment, every movement in every star that existed 
millions of ages before Adam's creation ; and the state, 
place, and thoughts, of each of us, as they will be, 
myriads of ages hence, are now evident to Him. 
Reason must allow that there is no real past, except 
to finite perception, since all that is called past, not 
only remains present in the sight of God, but is also 
written in light upon the materials of the universe. 
Reason, however, can bring no evidence to prove the 
visibility of all the future as well as all the past; but 
yet we must believe it, because we must believe in the 
Infinite mind, in whom past, present, and future can 
not exist; because they are, so to say, but as organi- 
zations belonging to the creature. Omnipotence, Om- 
niscience, Omnipresence, Eternity, are one in God ; 
and by our abode with him, and by our capacity of an- 
nihilating time and space by thoughts of His deeds, we 
are involved in these attributes, and must forever be 
learning what they signify. 

Motion results from mind, and it began in the will 
of God. None but a being whose intellect is biased 
by desires incompatible with the plan of creation, can 
fail to perceive that the Divine will and power are 
goodness in design and deed. If men look abroad 
over the works of the Almighty, and yet deny his ex- 
istence, or fail to adore, it is because they prefer wor- 
shiping something more like themselves. They can 



180 TEACHINGS OF LIGHT. 

clearly see that all things must have been made, and 
therefore they can not doubt the eternal power and 
Godhead ; and on that very account it is impossible for 
them to escape condemnation, since their inference 
concerning the righteousness of God must be as distinct 
as their inference concerning his power, for reason 
tells us that Omnipotence can not be unjust. "Be- 
hold the heavens," says Cicero ; " must we not ac- 
knowledge that there is a perfect being?" By the 
Logos, the divine Wisdom, were all things made ; but 
the darkness does not comprehend the light, and the 
evil in us still excludes it, or we should discover a 
world within in correspondence with Jehovah. We 
turn away from the glorious revelation, although it is 
but a personal expression of the fact, that, as a Cre- 
ator, God is faithful and fatherly and loving. He calls 
on us to repent of our miserable contempt of true ex- 
istence, and to submit to be informed and to be happy. 
We have seen that the meaning of existence, as far 
as we can discern it, is love, boundless love. This is 
our idea of God in creation, and it implies created in- 
telligence to recognize and enjoy it as a manifestation 
of God, for a latent Deity is a deity unknown ; the 
natural light agrees with the light of revelation. The 
attributes of the Almighty exist only in creation, since, 
without action, Omnipotence is but a word. Almighti- 
ness is infinite, and acts in infinitude; and, like Omni- 
science must have infinite objects on which to evince 
itself. Immensity of means is the expression of im- 
mensity of power, and the scene of love must ever be 
as boundless as the Divine beneficence; and, therefore, 
to assert that there ever was a time when God was 
without intelligent creatures, is to assert there was a 
time when Deity was dormant. There is succession 
to the creature, but none to Him. Existence is His 
one act, His everlasting object; hence every thing 
which we can conceive is connected with all other 



TEACHINGS OF LIGHT. 181 

things, boundlessly as to space, and endlessly as to 
duration, because all begin and end in the Infinite. 
There is no dissociation, because every thing is part 
and parcel of God's one eternal act of manifestation to 
created beings, by referring reason to Himself. We per- 
ceive successively ; but to perceive truly, is to see as 
God sees— all things at once— and as they are, in seculo 
seculorum, with all their variety, a harmonious whole. 

The eternal character and consistency of Jehovah's 
works have been used as an argument against the 
reception of any other revelation than that of science. 
What science will answer all the purposes of the Bible, 
we are not informed. Astronomy and geology show 
us no Saviour; and the heroics of infidelity have not 
been those of heaven. Its exploits, either at home or 
abroad, notwithstanding its pride in sciential appliances, 
have never evinced any tendency to promote the glory 
of God or good-will among men. To convince men of 
sin, of righteousness, and of judgment to come, has 
neither been the end of their doctrines nor the motive 
of their revelations. In fact, this kind of conviction is 
just that w T hich infidels desire very scientifically to 
dispense with, and the fruits of their doctrines have 
fully demonstrated the bitterness of their nature. 
Yet let us not blame science, since this could never 
impede religion but in minds determined to find their 
own way, without the help of that light which the God 
of mercy pitifully offers them. That there is nothing 
in real science opposed to the Scriptures, has only been 
the more clearly manifested, by the astonishing trouble 
which infidels have taken in endeavoring to draw evi- 
dence from nature, against revelation. They have 
been digging into the earth, as if to hide themselves 
from the sun, and to bury themselves beyond the 
reach of the only source of life and joy. Geology will 
not help them, the mountains will not fall on them, 
the caves will not hide them ; they are driven out as 



182 TEACHINGS OF LIGHT. 

if by a centrifugal force to meet their antagonists in 
the light, if not to be convinced, yet to be silenced 
there. A fact will show how the motive with which 
a man looks will pervert his judgment. " Oh," says 
one, " it was found, that in sinking a pit at Jaci, near 
Mount Etna, seven distinct layers of lava, with a thick 
bed of earth covering each, were pierced through. " 
This, observes the infidel, could not have occurred in 
less than fourteen thousand years. But true and em- 
inent geologists, who looked with the fear of God before 
their eyes, found that there was no earth between the 
layers. The narrator who so confidently announced 
these ideal beds, immediately afterward states that 
44 the country about Hybla being overwhelmed by the 
lava of Etna, became totally barren, but in a second 
eruption, by a shower of ashes from the mountain, 
it soon re-assumed its ancient beauty and fertility," 
Thus we see, that when he had forgotten his doubts 
of the Mosaic record, he found no need for the two 
thousand years in order to convert the lava into luxuri- 
ant fields. Real science tells nothing but the truth. 

It is remarkable, that the facts of geology and other 
sciences have led to the denial of Christianity on the 
Continent, where the spirit of inquiry is trammeled 
by usurped authority, and Christian doctrines have 
been cast into fixed and unalterable forms ; but in 
England, where the mind is left comparatively free 
to ask for itself, investigation has only tended to con- 
firm the faith. 

We must allow that time is not a consideration in 
the business of the Eternal ; and we can well suppose 
that the ages which geologists believe to have passed 
over this earth previous to the formation of man, were 
preparative of conveniences for human population, and 
anticipative of human exigencies. Moses does not in- 
form us how long the earth had existed, but only gives 
us the earliest chronology of events in relation to man. 



TEACHINGS OF LrGHT. 183 

The indefinite periods of geology may be the days of 
successive creation mentioned in Genesis, since it is 
certain that the orders of creation, as shown in the 
stratifications of the earth's crust, are exactly such as 
follow the order of creation as described by the first 
historian — a fact sufficient in itself to puzzle infidels to 
account for the information possessed by the Jewish 
legislator. 

The use of the eye is to see what God has done. 
Can " God work miracles ?" says the sentimental 
Rousseau ; «« can He derogate from the laws which 
He has established ? The question, treated seriously, 
would be impious if it were not absurd." Yes, it 
would indeed be impious to suppose the Almighty at 
variance with Himself. But the impiety and the ab- 
surdity belong to the mind that conceives a God limited 
by His own laws, not as they relate to moral existence, 
but to natural phenomena. Surely Omnipotence may 
alter His own works, in evidence of His power, and 
for the instruction of intelligent agents, without con- 
tradicting Himself. But the infidel does not see God 
as the author of righteousness, or as a lawgiver to 
understanding spirits, but only as the power at work, 
originating and maintaining material operations. The 
scoffer looks up into the heavens through his telescope, 
and catches a few glimmerings of glory through his 
tube ; he calculates orbits, and watches planets unde- 
viating in their courses, and utters that very thought 
which Peter, the Apostle of Jesus, 1800 years ago, 
said he would utter — " There shall come in the last 
days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and say- 
ing, Where is the promise of his coming? for since 
the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were 
from the he ginning of the creation" A power superior 
to nature is not acknowledged, and to imagine it is 
irrational. " The probability of the continuance of 
the laws of nature," says Laplace, " is superior in our 



184 TEACHINGS OF LIGHT. 

estimation to every other evidence. What has a 
Christian to state, by way of argument, against this 
probability ? Facts, facts — natural facts ; nothing but 
fact is an argument. The testimony is experience, 
and there is no other evidence. We appeal to what 
God has manifestly done, in order to give a reason 
for our belief in His promises. He Himself always 
directs us to His deeds ; He did so from the first — 
He does so now. The faith of Christians stands in 
the power of God. Let us not, like the unbeliever, 
be willfully ignorant; we do well to take heed to the 
sure word of prophecy : it is full of facts : it points us 
incessantly to visible things, accomplished, and now 
doing and about to be done. It told us that scoffers 
would plead the continuance of nature, in statu quo, 
from the beginning, as a reason for not believing in its 
Lord; and the thing is before us — we have the fact 
in their writings. The argument is, however, a recent 
affair, drawn out of these last times, because not until 
now have we seen enough of the laws of nature to 
conceive of their invariable order and operation. It 
is well, and blessed be God for the light of science — it 
has banished chance from the world of matter; but 
faith had banished it from all worlds at the very mo- 
ment she believed in God. 

True science is light from heaven, and will conduct 
minds upward, if they will but trace it to its source. 
But does science, indeed, demonstrate the invariable 
character of natural laws ? Does it prove that all 
things have continued as they were from the begin- 
ning of the creation ? The Apostle Peter again gives 
us a word with which to silence the scoffer : — k For 
this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of 
God the heavens icere of old, and the earth standing 
out of the water and in the water.'' * It is semi-science, 
or rather science by piecemeal and in fragments, that 

* See Keith's Demonstration of the Truth of Christianity, 



TEACHINGS OF LIGHT. 185 

irreligious men, like the giants warring against Jove, 
have so hastily turned against the word of God ; but 
the very fragments fall back to crush the rebels. 
The more men examine this earth, the more they 
find to show that the system of this world has been 
subjected to change. " Every part of the earth," 
says Cuvier (Theory of Earth, 5th Ed. p. 7), "every 
hemisphere, every continent, every island of any ex- 
tent exhibits the same phenomenon." " It is the sea 
which has left them (shells, &c.) in the places where 
they are now found." " The basin of the sea has 
undergone one change, at least, either in extent or in 
situation. Such is the result of the very first search, 
and of the most superficial examination." " The traces 
of revolutions become still more decisive when we as- 
cend a little higher, and approach near to the great 
chains. There are still found many beds of shells; 
some of these are even thicker and more solid ; the 
shells are quite as numerous and as well preserved, 
but they are no longer of the same species." " The 
sea, previous to the deposition of the horizontal strata, 
had formed others, which, by the operation of prob- 
lematical causes, were broken, raised, and overturned 
in a thousand ways; and as several of these inclined 
strata, which it had formed at more remote periods, 
rise higher than the horizontal strata which have suc- 
ceeded them, or at least shoals and inequalities ; and 
this must have happened whether they had been 
raised by one extremity, or whether the depression 
of the opposite extremity had made the waters sub- 
side. Thus is the second result not less clear nor 
less satisfactorily demonstrated than the first, to every 
one who will take the trouble of examining the mon- 
uments on which it is established." 

" A glance at the best geological maps will satisfy an 
inquirer that a greater part of the present land has been 
raised from the deep." — Lyell's Geology, vol. i. p. 135. 



186 TEACHINGS OF LIGHT. 

" All observers admit that the strata were formed 
beneath the waters, and have been subsequently con- 
verted into dry land." — Buckland's Bridgewater Trea- 
tise, p. 44. 

So, then, the most superficial observation is sufficient 
to show that " the calculating the probability of the 
continuance" of things as they were at first would 
make a man a very sorry philospher. Any one may 
satisfy himself, if he will use his eyes, that the earth 
has undergone a series of vast changes, and that there 
was a time when it was not fit for human habitation, 
and another, when, although habitable by man, it yet 
was submerged. What a series of transitions from 
zoophytes to man — what changes of nature from a 
brute world to a world of minds, reasoning concern- 
ing their Maker, acknowledging His benevolence, and 
hoping for an end in keeping with God's character ; or 
else, like Hume, studying history without religion, and 
despising the forewarnings of Heaven, and viewing 
humanity in all its pathos only as an accident of the 
elements, without a purpose but to die. 

It would, no doubt, be argued that these changes are 
themselves the results of the invariable laws which 
govern the universe. Where is this discovered ? There 
is nothing in the known laws of matter and of motion, 
as manifest in earth or heaven, to account for changes 
such as have transpired. Unalterable ordinances 
can not create new eras. Some hypothesis must be 
invented, some cosmogony indiscoverable in facts, and 
unrevealed to man, must be imagined to suit the nice 
reason of the skeptic. The secret is this — he has an 
object to serve, some motive for disparaging the claims 
of the Bible; like Rousseau and Hume, he wishes to 
prove it false, because he can not bear to believe Chris- 
tianity. It will not administer to pride, nor suffer a 
man to hope without holiness: it demands self-denial. 
It can not be endured — away with it. But how ? Can 



TEACHINGS OF LIGHT. 187 

not they direct us to a theory which will dispense with 
Divine legation and Almighty interference with the 
workings of worlds ? Will not the nebulous notions 
account for every thing like successive developments, 
geological and astronomical ? and may not man be an 
expanded monkey, and a monkey an expanded monad? 
Laplace mathematically sets the heavens in motion, to 
dispense with the management of their Creator ; but 
he derives his vortices from his own fancies. There 
are no nebulae but in our minds and in our defective 
vision. Wherever man can penetrate with the tele- 
scope into open space, he sees only orderly worlds, with 
nothing among them, in all the planes of all the planets, 
to warrant the notion that things might not have al- 
ways been as they now are. And yet this earth takes 
her place among these planets, with the records of 
many changes in her bosom. What is the conclusion, 
but that God has interfered with the regulations of his 
own world, and may do so again ? There is no power 
but in the hand of the Almighty to alter the aspect of 
worlds, and what that hand sets in order no other can 
disturb. The motive with which man regards creation 
will determine his conclusion ; and if he has no rever- 
ence for God, he will soon contrive to find that there 
is no evidence of his superintendence. Newton saw 
the universe with his soul enlightened by religion ; he 
believed in Christianity, and thus saw heaven opened, 
and the throne of God : and the devout spirits of olden 
time looked with the same intelligence ; and though 
they did not measure the spaces between the stars, nor 
calculate the speed of light, they had yet a sublimer 
motive for looking up into the skies, for they felt that 
the Almighty was " riding on the heaven of heavens by 
His name, Jah" 



CHAPTER X. 

KNOWLEDGE. 

Notional knowledge, or that knowingness which comes 
to nought, is twin-born with ignorance; and it is that 
for which mankind naturally entertain an early passion, 
since it serves to occupy the mind, and divert it from 
those realities which are of too solemn a nature to al- 
low guilty beings quietly to forget that they have an 
account to render to the great Judge. It is that, also, 
which gives rise to all those wordy disputes which 
cause unmeaning divisions among men, because those 
disputes, being destitute of definite or real ideas, pre- 
sent nothing for minds to perceive and agree on. It is 
the opposite of that confident apprehension of some- 
thing imparted by the Almighty to the mind, and which 
therefore is worth contending for, as pro traditd fide, 
and without which we have none but the fool's right 
to dispute, since, in fact, we have no assured truth to 
offer, and nothing to testify but that our opinion is su- 
perior to our wisdom. 

True knowledge is the knowledge of truth, and truth 
is the parent of faith, hope, and charity. To under- 
stand is to perceive the meaning of another mind, and 
we must perceive the intentions of our Maker before 
we can adore. Man willingly co-operates with man, 
from mutual intelligence ; and when man discerns the 
Divine idea in any thing or event, and is personally and 
affectionately influenced by that idea, then he becomes 
truly devout — his religion being founded on a felt truth, 
which so operates on his rational nature, that his mo- 
tives and actions correspond with the light in his un- 
derstanding. Thus true knowledge is essential to true 



KNOWLEDGE. 189 

religion, for this consists in conformity of mind with 
the recognized teaching of God, both in natural and in 
spiritual revelation, for the divinity in Nature requires 
her seers as well as the divinity in the Bible. Hence 
every real science contributes to theology, and instructs 
man concerning the goodness and power of his Maker, 
and thus far, also, sustains the reliance of the mind 
upon His providence for intellectual, moral, and physi- 
cal supply, according to the demand rightfully made 
upon his bounty as a faithful Creator. But this always 
implies the use of means, in accordance with the plan 
of creation, as regards both mind and body. Faith in 
a falsehood is a false faith, and that will not save us. 
True faith trusts in what God has done, and therefore 
what He also will do. 

It requires a clear soul to see a truth so as to believe 
it at first sight, and there is nothing more doubtful 
than a fact to an ignorant mind. The reason of this is 
that nothing is understood while standing alone. To 
separate any idea from its connection is to put it out of 
its place, and thus to make it a puzzle. It is like pre- 
senting a fossil to a man, and asking him what it bo- 
longed to when alive, and begging him to describe the 
nature, property, and fashion of the creature of which 
it once formed a part. A large and exact extent of 
knowledge is demanded mentally to allocate any thing, 
or to form a complete idea of any object before us. 
Small knowledge has a small vocabulary, and no mean- 
ings, or at least few truths, and whatever does not 
seem to fall in with these few is looked at as a wonder 
or a lie. 

Science is not salvation, and every truth does not 
confer liberty of spirit ; there may be health of soul 
with very little knowledge. A robust infancy of spirit 
is indeed often witnessed among comparatively unin- 
formed persons, who evince a strong appetite for truth, 
and eagerly enjoy it, as the sincere food of the soul. 



190 KNOWLEDGE. 

There are others, however, who have a voracious de- 
sire for informotion, who yet, morally speaking, are 
but atrophies and living skeletons, simply because they 
are vitally wrong in their intellectual functions, and, 
like Pharaoh's kine, devour, not that they may digest, 
grow strong in spirit, and be fit for work, but that they 
may gratify a depraved disposition, and merely please 
themselves. These persons are like intellectual cre- 
tins, living and moving and chattering among the great 
wonders of creation ; but, not seeing the meanings of 
things, they do not worship God nor learn any thing 
of Him. They are too busy with phenomena to look 
beyond the elements of their amusement; they make 
knowledge a thing of mere sensation, and thus truth 
itself deceives them, because their affections are awry. 

Self-denial is in no case more requisite than in re- 
sisting our appetency for knowledge. The fair tree 
that flourished in the midst of the lost Paradise shed 
its seed upon the earth, and the deluge did not destroy 
it. The tempting fruit is now habitually eaten, but 
still it is forbidden ; and its effects are still to make us 
feel our nakedness, not with the shame of repentance, 
but of pride. To indulge our curiosity, irrespective of 
right ends, is the worst of sensualities. But, of course, 
the pleasure of indulgence is the sole object with minds 
not morally enlightened, and if our affections are not 
trained by association and sympathy with charitable 
and loving spirits, we must live selfishly. 

Yet, how gracious in His tenderness is our God! 
He constitutes the senses and the soul of the young 
child to dally with its dangers and its safety with equal 
delight ; and the little creature, ignorant of evil, plays 
with the crested snake as it would with its mother's 
tresses. But affection watches over its dalliance, and 
while it drinks knowledge and finds amusement in 
every object that does not bear on its front the aspect 
of anger, it also learns to love and to smile. It needs 



KNOWLEDGE. 191 

do law to teach it faith, but it relies, because its self- 
hood is provided for without inquiry, and the very- 
feebleness of its undoubting life makes its whole ex- 
istence like a prayer anticipated and answered, ere its 
utterance. But as it grows in knowledge, it finds both 
good and evil; it becomes suspicious, and then desire 
springs up, without a love that may be blessed, and 
therefore disappointment soon teaches it to mourn, 
because its will is inconsistent with the universal wis- 
dom that calculates its good in opposition to itself. la 
this manner we are taught the last lesson that we 
learn, to submit ourselves to a guiding hand, and to 
trust our wants, without hurry, to the Mind that fur- 
nishes us with knowledge to regulate our affections 
unto safe indulgence. 

This natural tendency, merely to seek gratification 
for selfish ends, is in no respect more manifest than in 
our pursuit of knowledge. We are rather disposed to 
seek a succession of pleasing emotions from ideas as 
they flit across our brains, than to collect a treasure for 
eternity, by detaining, analyzing, and arranging them, 
so as to form a science in our souls. By thus amusing 
ourselves we frustrate our own aim, and lose the high 
and holy enjoyment which is ultimately attained by 
patiently waiting upon truth, from the love inspired 
by a few glimpses of her vailed beauty. The success- 
ful investigation of nature is like that quiet, hopeful 
wooing which proceeds about its heart-work reverently 
and religiously ; and it finds that recompense which is 
due only to the fortitude and faith that rely upon God 
as the author of truth and love, in the possession of 
which all labor is forever rewarded. 

Time is an essential element of our knowledge. 
Every inquiry into science should be conducted with 
the assurance, that by observing fact after fact we shall 
rise beyond the region of doubt, and ascend as by steps 
to the holy place where God reveals His glory. If, 



192 KNOWLEDGE. 

indeed, we enter with the right hope, we advance into 
a gradual revelation, and feel that the mind of our Ma- 
ker is meeting us with endless intelligence and joy. 
God's words, whether established in the elements or 
written in the Bible, always express the perfection of 
His character as the parent and the patron of all who 
seek rest for their spirits in His liberality and wisdom. 
Thus a man with the temper of Newton will think 
becomingly about the grandeur of the Creator's phys- 
ical universe, until by degrees he rises into a clear 
elevation, from whence, with sublime but sober rap- 
ture, he beholds the heavens and the earth as one 
system of diversified wonders, in which Omnipotence 
reveals Himself, both as loveliness and love. Thus, too, 
he perceives, at last, that all that the prophets of Je- 
hovah spake, and all that the apostles of Jesus preach- 
ed concerning redemption and eternal health, is in 
beauteous harmony with the teachings of providence, 
and that the spiritual system of revealed science pre- 
sents whatever is required to complete and consum- 
mate the wisdom inscribed with light upon the world 
of nature. In short, all inquiry is fruitless and dis- 
appointing, unless directed in a divine manner; for 
there is no science, no beauty, no truth, no loveliness, 
but in the works of God. Men have ever been able 
to use their reason to happy and ennobling ends only 
when they have discarded all fond fancies, and fol- 
lowed the indications mercifully granted to them in 
nature, when seen in the light that flows from Heav- 
en. God has not left Himself without witness, but 
men have shown their origin from a fallen father, 
in their disregard of God's voice. They have not 
been disposed to retain the thought of Him in their 
knowledge, nor can they admit His authority over 
them until they have seen enough of His majesty to 
humble them in the consciousness that He is the sole 
source of all power and endowment. In fact, before 



193 

man can rightly think, he must be so far religious as 
to be persuaded that wisdom presides over ail true 
knowledge. He otherwise but confirms himself in 
delusion, and instead of becoming devout, surrounds 
himself with the palpable darkness of his doubts. But 
he who seeks wisdom finds it in every department of 
knowledge. His faculties refresh themselves at the 
eternal fountain, and, in the perpetual ecstasy of ado- 
ration, he interprets the meaning of objects, and finds 
all things but symbols of the present God. Thus the 
mind, properly employed, is exquisitely happy. The 
eagerness of a godly ambition is sustained by immortal 
hope, and the tree of knowledge, planted by God's 
own hand, bears ripe fruit as well as beauteous blos- 
soms, to be gathered freely, and freely enjoyed, by all 
who are entitled to partake, which none can be until 
arrayed in that robe of light in which the Lord of 
glory clothed himself to teach us how to wear it. — hu- 
mility. 

In the desire for knowledge, as in every other dis- 
position of the mind, we see the distinction between 
the will belonging to the animal, and that proper to 
the spiritual man. The animal will is determined 
only by bodily condition and convenience : but the 
spiritual will asserts its superiority by desires after in- 
telligence, because, in truth, it enjoys God. The an- 
imal mind may have mathematical habits, and be of- 
fended at contradictions and deformities: but this is 
not reason — it is only instinct still. Reason, indeed, 
prompts men to build beautiful cities, full of splendid 
palaces, museums and churches, but the reason is not 
in the materials, but in the ideas thus rendered visible. 
The policies of an ant-hill or a bee-hive are just as 
reasonable as the thoughts of those who enjoy mere 
sights. Not that I would disparage sight-seeing. 
Every object in creation has in it an idea peculiar to 
itself, and is worth knowing for its own sake. But the 
13 



194 KNOWLEDGE. 

difficulty is to get at it so as to see it. Without purity 
of purpose, which is the result of a regenerated will, 
our opinions and prejudices blind us to all beauty, and 
we can not place ourselves in the right position to be- 
hold the divine idea : it is therefore no wonder that 
people in general are amused with the superficies 
of things, and know nothing. They do not seek for 
ideas, because their wills are animal, and desirous only 
of sensations. Unless there are minds in the beauti- 
ful palaces, museums, and churches, capable of ab- 
stracting themselves from conveniences, curiosities, and 
decorations, and of living amidst ideas, and traveling 
hither and thither in thought, searching after those 
spiritual realities which objects of sense only very im- 
perfectly intimate — these things might as well not be, 
as regards spiritual and rational ends. It is the per- 
ception of this reason which constitutes w T hat men call 
genius. It discovers the capabilities of nature, and 
intuitively proceeds along a path of its own beyond 
knowledge. Imagination is the pioneer of such 
minds, opening vistas of vision not to be reached by 
common eyesight, and crowded with objects, some few 
of which are now and then imperfectly made palpable 
and visible by the gifted seers who materialize their 
thoughts in words, in colors and in marble. 

But, alas ! evermore there is danger in endowment, 
without the binding of the soul to its Maker by obedi- 
ent love — love responding to love commanding. God 
must speak the Law in keeping with our fellowships, 
and write it on the heart, or else men will fabricate 
their own ideas, however foolish, and worship and 
serve them, however false. All the histories of earth 
show that unless we are presented with means ade- 
quate to our desire for knowledge concerning the 
world beyond our senses, we must be busy with delu- 
sions. But revelation brings the means home to us. 
In the uncreated Word we have what we want to en- 



KNOWLEDGE. 195 

lighten thought. We may now learn and love infi- 
nitely and everlastingly, because we have objects set 
before us both appropriate and worthy. The relation- 
ships of our humanity to other beings, capable, like us, 
of expatiating in the productions of Jehovah's mind, 
when rightly felt, compel us to be religious. Under- 
standing the purpose of our Maker to be our happi- 
ness, we can truly delight in His works, and through 
them sustain our spirits with a perpetual stream of 
knowledge direct from the fountain of all intelligence ; 
and, imbued with the Divine spirit which communicates 
life to our affections, the exercise of intellect itself 
thus becomes essentially worship, and therefore bless- 
edness. Without religion, knowledge is but pomp and 
vanity; a matter of the earth to die and to be buried. 
Indeed the love of knowledge is only the love of mere 
pleasure, unless it is also the love of truth, and truth 
is never followed for her own sake, except when the 
mind is guided by those principles which rectify the 
conscience, and render a man desirous above all things 
to walk without blame, as in the presence of the Holy 
One. 

As there is no true science but of Divine origin, so 
there is no morality without religion — nor, in fact, 
does man possess manly ideas without some apprehen- 
sion of his position, as the vicegerent of the Almighty 
on earth, holding his faculties in responsibility to their 
Bestower. He then feels that obedience is beatitude, 
and perversity is suffering. There must be some men- 
tal association with superior intelligence, some percep- 
tion of moral relationship to Him whose will is law, 
before we can entertain a noble thought, or an idea 
capable of raising our desires above corporeal demand, 
or elevating our actions out of the impulses of bodily 
selfhood. But knowledge, united with true love, is 
religion. There must be sympathy with heaven, as 
well as an insight of heavenly order, before we can 



196 KNOWLEDGE. 

will and work in its spirit; and any motive less than 
this can be but brutal, if it be not diabolical. 

The heavenly feeling or principle is easily distin- 
guished from every other. It is that of a power irre- 
sistible, when once admitted — but still of so delicate a 
nature, that it may at any time be dissipated by a dis- 
trustful thought. It is that unselfish spirit which 
seeks enjoyment only by diffusing it, and knows noth- 
ing of violence, offensive or defensive ; for it has no 
pretensions to ownership and authority in knowledge 
as for itself, because its whole existence is evinced, 
like that of the peaceful light, by the life, beauty, joy, 
harmony, and happiness, which it was created to pro- 
mote and to exhibit. But this spirit operates in the 
soul by improving our ideas with the addition of heav- 
enly truths to the images of earth. It binds heart to 
heart, not only by natural affections, but by spiritual 
thoughts and the interchange of hopes and assurances 
that spring from the consciousness that God has spoken 
what it believes , and that faith can not be shaken from 
its stability of bliss, because it is built upon the knowl- 
edge of what Omnipotence has done and said. The 
witness is within ; logic is unnecessary to love, since 
its life is all demonstration, and it begins as well as 
ends with probatwn est. 

If education proceed not under the power of 
this approving spirit, it is better that the soul should 
be left to the elements to fight its way onward, 
through darkness and suffering, to light and satisfac- 
tion, with the help of God's direct teaching in the 
mercies of His providence ; for the soul is safer in feel- 
ing after God in ignorance than in presuming .upon 
knowledge without love. To educate without Chris- 
tian principle is to educate selfishness, and to refine 
and intensify the ingenuities of hell : for knowledge, 
whatever be its kind, must always evince itself in cor- 
responding action. But to be busy about self is not 



KNOWLEDGE. 197 

proper to humanity ; and even the beasts that perish 
are better employed than to live only for themselves. 
Yet this will be the end of knowledge, without the 
impartation of the principle that excites to action for 
the extension of social blessedness, in the enlargement 
of the mind by truths that elevate the affections while 
strengthening the faculties. These truths are found 
only in creation, as investigated by true science — and 
in the Bible, as read by a soul that waits on God. I 
mean, by science, a system of facts on certain general 
principles — -the classification of the properties of things 
for the clearer apprehension of God's works. The 
ideas that do not present us with the true characters 
of objects are neither scientific nor poetical ; and how- 
ever prevalent they may be, serve no other purpose 
than to delude the soul by exciting unamiable emo- 
tions, to terminate in misery. 

Such is the substance of the romance which untried 
youth, and frivolity at all ages, are apt so greatly to 
admire. Fancy, when left to her license, unrestrained 
by a cultivated conscience, has the faculty of a magi- 
cian, and makes a fool's paradise out of phantoms, and 
places a glass before the eye of her victim, which dis- 
torts every object and decks it with false colors that 
please those who find it painful to think. 

All great and good thoughts are truthful and practi- 
cal, and true poetry itself is so. But when poetry is 
realized, slow and shallow minds lose sight of the 
poetry, as if it were not in the facts before them. 
They look at the outside of the materials, and forget 
to look for what is in them. They admire the carved 
foliage of the chapiters, but see not the shekinah ; 
they are dazzled at the blazing brilliance of the gems 
upon the high-priest's breast-plate, but discern no di- 
vine meaning in their renderings of light; they handle 
the wires of the electro-telegraph, but perceive not 
the tractable lightning, and feel not the grandeur of 



198 KNOWLEDGE. 

the thought, that man has made the glittering arrows 
of the Almighty the medium between soul and soul 
hundreds of miles apart. They acknowledge that the 
prophet's words are poetical when he says, 4 * for 
stones they shall have iron ;" but they see nothing 
of this truth in thousands of miles of railway, and the 
means of bringing this broad, fair w T orld of minds into 
one compact and sensitive community. The poetry 
of truth is nothing to those whose business is only a 
trade, and knowledge is valued only as a saleable com- 
modity by those whose souls live in the market. 

There are but two kinds of knowledge — the one of 
mind, the other of matter. The kuowledge of matter 
and its laws is physical science : the knowledge of 
mind is self-analysis, which is the highest and most 
interesting of all sciences, since it includes all we feel 
as well as think. God reveals Himself in both forms 
of knowledge. By the material evidences of His 
power around us, we are taught ideas of time, space, 
form, color, odor, and every thing that suggests bodily 
action and presence. By self-consciousness, together 
with that of external things, we are enabled to reason 
and associate in spirit with other thinking beings, and 
even with the Maker of all. The true end or purpose 
of all science is to inform us concerning the attributes 
of God, and his relation to ourselves. Whatever fails 
of indicating this end is error and falsehood. These 
are sinful, so far as they are willful ; they are de- 
partures from Divine direction, and therefore also 
from happiness. As truth is in all respects infinite, 
so also is its opposite ; and hence our chief motive for 
desiring the constant guidance of truth, as this alone 
can lead to God, while its opposite conducts to endless 
darkness. Truth, or the expression of Divine wis- 
dom, alone rectifies the will or instructs the under- 
standing. 

The state of the will is tested by the application of 



KNOWLEDGE. 199 

the knowledge we possess, as well as by our endeavors 
to acquire more. Mind can not exist inactively; it 
must be busy, in good or evil, as long as we are awake; 
and he who is not engaged in some useful pursuit, 
either real or ideal, had better sleep. The feeling of 
ennui is a weariness of soul verging on malignity; and 
it is peculiar to educated society, because the habit of 
sleeping, when we have nothing good to think of, is 
deemed barbarous and impolite. But as surely as a 
mind is not well employed, nor permitted to withdraw 
itself in sleep, it will become either imbecile or im- 
moral. There is nothing for educated minds to do 
but sin, if they will not work. Ceasing to cultivate 
themselves or their neighbors, and unwilling or unfit 
to practice the various husbandries of life, they must 
live on bad books, or qualify themselves for Bedlam. 
He who is not preparing for the skies, ought to be 
busy in improving matters on earth, since reason was 
given to man for no other purpose but to apply knowl- 
edge to use, either in this world or some other. As 
there are but two kinds of knowledge, so there are 
but two ways of being useful — the one by providing 
comforts for bodily existence, and the other by pro- 
viding for the happiness of the soul. 

It is useless to educate, unless education itself tend 
to the employment of man's natural powers, in a nat- 
ural manner. When knowledge promotes not com- 
fort, it promotes wretchedness and temptation. A 
man, intellectually cultivated, must be either a patient 
saint, or a gloomy misanthrope, if placed, by the self- 
ishness of society or his own will, in such a position 
that he can not profitably or happily apply his knowl- 
edge. He may be able to interpret the eloquence of 
nature, and look out among the stars with a feeling of 
the infinite glories of heaven, but yet he lies buried in 
the earth alone with all his burning thoughts. He 
feels the darkness, the uselessness, and the rotten 



200 KNOWLEDGE. 

ness of death, because he lives in the consciousness 
of all that might have been, and ought to have been 
for him ; but that although awakened into earnest- 
ness by the urgencies of his own nature, and by the 
affected officiousness of artificial teachers, he is still 
left to shift for himself, though imprisoned in poverty, 
as if in cold iron, stone, and gloom. Such is the lot 
of many a classic mind, to whom the plowman "whis- 
tling o'er the lea" is a prince. And the reason of this 
misery is in the fact, that the knowledge which has 
nothing to do with daily employment, induces pride, 
false or unnatural taste, and makes this world a wil- 
derness, because the heathen gods are banished, and 
the vale of Tempe requires tillage, that its inhabitants 
may eat. And all kinds of education are equally mad- 
dening that do not give vigor and liberty to human 
sympathies, induce a disposition to labor, and make 
demand for it. There is no happiness without action; 
and if a man be crippled in every limb, his mind must 
be right busy, or he must either bemoan himself, or 
sleep as a brute does when its senses are not acted 
on. And he who, from the state of his mind and the 
style of his ideas, or the mismanagement of monopo- 
lists, can not get to work, might as well be palsied, or 
in the penitentiary. Nothing but the stronghold of 
faith on the right hand of God, as the vindicator of the 
oppressed, and the omnipotent opener of prisons and 
graves, can comfort the man who knows and wills, and 
can not act. Christianity is a business-spirit come 
from heaven to regenerate the earth, and men are 
moved by it to exertion, if only to turn the sod with 
the spade, that the curse which fell upon the ground 
for Adam's sake, may, by toil, be cured, and the dust 
of which man was molded might bloom and breathe 
again of Paradise. But toil must have good hope in 
it, as well as good knowledge, or it, too, is woe. 
"Work must be done for something — some social pur- 



KNOWLEDGE. 201 

pose, some comfort, some heart-end. In short, as 
knowledge without love is only vexation, so, unless 
love and knowledge equally nerve the arm to labor, it 
is but slavish drudgery ; and those who would enforce 
toil without making it intelligent, and conducive to 
domestic, social, patriotic, and philanthropic ends, are 
only Satan's slave-drivers, and receive his wages — 
living death and inherent condemnation. 

The end and purpose of all precept, teaching, prov- 
idence, and evangelizing, is to make men God-like, 
that they may endure all contradiction patiently, and 
persist in forgiving and loving until all faults are lost 
in the fullness of mercy, and all hearts are either won 
by the beauty of holiness or forever repelled into their 
own place by the irresistible force of truth and light. 

Happily in this country education always helps to 
elevate the mind by bringing it into association with 
useful employment, since there is a commercial de- 
maud for knowledge of every kind; but the higher 
advantage of even secular instruction is shown in its 
moralizing influence : for by supplying the mind with 
intellectual objects, it is the better enabled to resist 
vulgar temptations, and the more so, since education, 
in a Christian laud, involves an acquaintance with much 
religious and revealed truth. Facts speak strongly on 
this subject. In the journal of the Statistical Society, 
(November 1847) Mr. G. A. Porter, states that only 
one educated person in 76,227 of the male popula- 
tion, and only one in 2,034,133 of the female popula- 
tion, was accused of crime, on the yearly average, 
from 1836 to 1846, throughout England and Wales. 
In 1846, only one educated person in Middlesex was 
rendered amenable to the Jaws of his country; the 
annual aggregate of accusations being 25,412. Such 
facts need no comment. 

All true knowledge is divine, since there is no truth 
but of God's making. But it may be maliciously em- 



202 KNOWLEDGE. 

ployed, and the proof of maliciousness is the fact that 
a soul willfully perverts, to selfish or malignant pur- 
pose, the truth that benevolence places before our 
minds, to rectify our motives, and thus sin turns the 
truth of God into licentiousness, and takes occasion, 
from the liberality of Heaven, to render light itself a 
cloak for disguise and deception. Herein we see the 
hideousness of a lying spirit: it craftily takes advant- 
age of the gifts of God to deceive honest, unsuspicious, 
true, credulous souls, and wins upon their affections 
through their ignorance, in order to obtain some sacri- 
fice on the altar of its cupidity, whether for fame, for 
lucre, for lust, or for the satisfaction of whatever dis- 
position or desire may be the dominant principle or 
motive of its character. Hence the endless variety in 
the forms of beguiling fiction and of artifice with which 
men trade with others, and pander to the encourage- 
ment of their own passions. But the most Satanic of 
all deceptions is the common one of employing one 
truth for the purpose of concealing another. Thus 
men believing in the light of nature deny the light of 
the Spirit, and because God reveals Himself in cre- 
ation, require Him not to address them in any other 
way ; and thus, too, under the mask of conscientious- 
ness, men cease to exercise charity, and pretend to 
obey God while they would smite with a curse the 
brotherhood of Christ, as if they were the rightful 
monopolists of all wisdom, and as if knowledge dwelt 
alone with them. Surely, those who lay down laws 
for consciences, and condemn unheard, must arrogate 
to themselves the prerogatives of Divine intelligence, 
and assume such authority only because they believe 
themselves infallible, while in fact the immensity of 
their conceit conceals the enormity of their error. 

But it is of the nature of knowledge, or an acquaint- 
ance with facts and things, to confirm the humility of 
a truly humbled mind, because it is the quality of such 



KNOWLEDGE. 203 

a mind to feel its own ignorance and deficiency, in 
consequence of its perceiving somewhat of the excel- 
lent glory of Him by whose liberal hand all means are 
administered, and by whose inspiration all minds are 
endowed with whatever of understanding they may 
possess. In every mind that is not humble, knowledge 
is but knowingness, since each new insight into the 
relation of things only induces such a one to think 
more of himself, as if he were indeed a gifted seer, to 
be admired for his consciousness of eyesight. He 
looks not forth to wonder and to worship. He may, 
indeed, be well pleased that the universe is so nicely 
adapfed to his individual comfort, but in his self-com- 
placency he never thinks of being thankful to Him 
who has adapted the sunshine to his sight, and objects 
to his soul. Though capable of reasoning, concerning 
the movements of heaven and earth, as fitted to him- 
self, yet, with face opposed to the firmament of Jeho- 
vah, he looks up and laughs, without a thought but of 
himself. The soul, somewhat acquainted with the 
moral character of his Maker, however, and having 
respect to His holy law, as the mirror of His perfec- 
tion, feels that wisdom and love are both infinite, and 
that the utmost keenness of created vision can but 
serve the soul to gaze into the profundity before it, so 
as to discern those rays of light that indicate the glory 
beyond sight. Like the devout astronomer, peering 
into space among stars that appear but as points, 
although they are really centers of revolving and pop- 
ulous worlds, 4i in number beyond number," the more 
he beholds the more he feels his incapacity to pene- 
trate the depths of Divine knowledge and goodness. 
Conscious that he dwells but. as an atom of dust on 
the outskirts of a galaxy of immeasurable glory, mov- 
ing through eternity in the hand of Omnipotence, ho 
becomes, in his own estimation, as nothing, and he 
loses all perception of himself in the overwhelming 



*J04 KNOWLEDGE. 

apprehension of the Presence that fills immensity, 
and crowds the boundless existence He has fashioned 
with proofs of His power and His wisdom. The Au- 
thor of beauty and majesty and thought is the object 
of every rightly-thinking spirit. But what is the vis- 
ion of the heaven of heavens to a mind that sees not 
God ? It is but as a brilliant chromatropic display, 
revolving to please a child, that expresses its joy by 
exclaiming. I see — I see ! Thus the undevout natu- 
ral philosopher, without a spiritual insight, contents 
himself with regarding the orrery of God but as an 
invention for his amusement. But there is truly no 
meaning but moral meaning in the sights and sounds 
that penetrate to the soul of man: and the Divinity 
addresses himself personally to each one of us. and 
demands our hearts, while engaging our intellects. 
Almightiness is only so far evinced to our understand- 
ings, as to teach us to trust Him in His faithfulness 
for all futurity. Thus every lesson in true knowledge 
— knowledge of ourselves, of our position, and our 
Maker — ends in faith, to show us that we are not yet 
arrived at maturity of life, and shall not know the love 
that always embraces us until we are born into tho 
atmosphere of a higher and a brighter world, and are 
able unabashed to meet the eye that guards us. But 
this fellowship with Heaven is not complete in any 
partial knowledge, but in that which realizes God so 
perfectly as to be filled frith His own charity, for it is 
complete love alone that is complete light, and reveals 
all things without the possibility of error or of doubt. 
The true idea of any thing is its perfection. Human- 
ity in its completeness has not yet been seen by any 
of us. but it is that after which every intelligent 
believer is seeking: when he finds it, he will behold 
God, and know even as he is known. 



CHAPTER XL 



The duty of doubting is the first consequence of a 
rational faith, and of our liability to sin. The ignorant 
and willful have few doubts except of the truth : the 
false is the most probable to their apprehension, and 
whatever suits their tempers is apt to become their 
delusion ; for passion is the mightiest of deceivers, and 
corrupts the reason of every man who has not been 
instructed to distinguish right from wrong by the test 
of conscience, rectified by divine law. What we most 
vividly and selfishly hope or fear is most apt, in this 
twilight of reason, to deceive our senses and our judg- 
ment. If we look into the marvelous history of those 
deceptions which have deluded the masses of mankind, 
we shall discover that they have always flourished in 
proportion as minds have been unblest by the knowl- 
edge of natural and revealed realities, and consequently 
unestablished in any true faith. For however strongly 
such persons may believe, yet their best convictions 
amount merely to credulity, since they give credence to 
something demonstrably inconsistent with some truth 
clearly evident to all who will use their reason. What- 
ever is contrary to any known fact is a falsehood. 
Hence they are forced to set about confirming their 
folly by persuading themselves out of their senses. It 
is really a question whether all great impostors are not 
mad, in consequence of first adopting some notion con- 
trary to moral and physical law, and then reducing all 
their thoughts into keeping with their chosen absurd- 
ity and wickedness. Even a pretense, when pertina- 
ciously defended, readily assumes the appearance of 



206 FAITH. 

a truth to the mind of the ignorant pretender, partly 
from the readiness with which a weak intellect assents 
to a pleasing error, but mainly because the falsehood, 
being adopted from vanity, administers to the mainte- 
nance of pride and so quickly intoxicates the soul and 
blinds it to all evidence opposed to its delirious indul- 
gence. This is illustrated in a forcible manner by 
Joanna Southcote's monstrous delusion, which may be 
referred to, the rather, because its history is recent, 
undeniable, and well known. Joanna was the daughter 
of a small farmer in Devonshire, and born in 1750. 
She lived as a servant, of good character, in Exeter. 
But observe, though she studied the Scriptures dili- 
gently, she did so, not to believe them in the true spirit 
of religion, since she made her duty depend on outward 
signs and inward feelings, instead of submission to the 
plain commands of God. She did not worship, but con- 
verted the language of religion itself into her delu- 
sion, by the heretical device of detaching herself from 
others, and interpreting the Bible with a private and 
particular reference to her own person. As usual iu 
such cases, a strong sense of self, with \ery deficient 
natural attachments, and no faith, converted all she 
knew of the Bible or of the universe into confirmation 
of her egotistic enthusiasm. Pride was the demon 
that possessed her, and therefore she soon found that 
she was especially gifted — she had her commission, and 
of course her credentials were mysterious enough. 
She wrote prophecies, which were sealed up from 
1794 to 1803. and then being scrutinized during seven 
days by twenty-three persons appointed by herself, it 
was henceforth decided by them and some of their 
friends that her calling was of God. The grand object 
of her mission was consistent with her state of mind ; 
it was of a very personal nature — she was to bring forth 
the promised Shiloh. The event was year after year 
deferred, for \ery natural reasons* She had reached 



FAITH. 

her sixty-fourth year, without producing any thing 
but promise. The credulity of her disciples was s: ill 
stronger in its dotage and so was hers. Mr. Mathias, 
an upright and intelligent medical practitioner, was at 
length called to testify to the proximity of the grand 
event, but he found only a tympany, and, protesting 
against her blasphemy, was dismissed, to give place to 
an easier believer who was soon found. Mr. Mathias 
considered notoriety, and the love of ease and of afflu- 
ence, the prevailing passions of the prophetess. She 
passed her time in downy indolence, ate much and 
often, and never prayed until disease began to cure her 
of her delusion. Her followers, however, were not to 
be so readily cured. On her death-bed she thus ad- 
dressed a number of the most prominent, that is, the 
most wealthy among them : — •• My friends, some of 
you have known me nearly twenty-five years, and all of 
you not less than twenty : when you first heard me 
speak of my prophecies, you sometimes heard me say 
that I doubted my inspiration : but at the same time 
you would never let me despair. When I have been 
alone, it has often appeared delusion : but when the 
communication was made to me, I did not in the least 
doubt. Feeling, as I now feel, that my dissolution is 
drawing near, and that a day or two may terminate 
my life, it all appears delusion." She wept bitterly. 
— " Mother,'" said Mr. Howe, " your feelings are 
human : we know that you are a favorite of God, and 
that you will produce the promised child : and what- 
ever you say to the contrary, it shall not diminish our 
faith." Instead of faith, he should have said mad- 
ness. 

Thousands of educated people deluded themselves 
in this case, but it is evident that there were no 
Christians among them. It is also clear that pride 
and vanity deceived them all; but the deception is 
just of the same kind as that which is the prevailing 



208 FAITH. 

epidemic — they all thought that they were especial 
favorites of heaven, and were appointed to enjoy salva- 
tion in a convenient and flattering way, with peculiar 
privileges, under Joanna's red wax seal, instead of 
rejoicing in the common redemption, and the testimony 
of a good conscience both toward God and man. 
These people had no faith in the truth, and therefore 
they were prepared to believe a strong delusion. 
And so it is with all who have not their principles 
fixed on those moral and religious convictions which 
induce the instant doubt and denial of every thing 
which flatters self-love, and contradicts the testimony 
of truth, as established by Divine Providence, consist- 
ently working out its revelations from the beginning to 
the end — from the fall of Adam to the consummating 
advent of Christ. A rational faith is proved by rational 
doubts. In her lucid intervals, Joanna could doubt; 
for reason believes not by fits, nor according to bodily 
feelings, but by preserving before the mind's eye clear 
ideas of those objects which God has revealed. But 
delusions are always both indefinite and singular. 
Truth is so decided, that she looks at every step, and 
tries the ground she treads on, because she knows the 
enemy would entrap the unwary ; and yet she is not 
suspicious, but wise. As, in scientific respects, a 
supposed discovery, if not congruous and consistent 
with the known system of facts, may be quickly 
pronounced a fallacy by all who are grounded in first 
principles, so in religion, whatever has not a catholic 
and uniting tendency must be declared to be assump- 
tion, delusion, and imposture ; and all who have not 
that charity which would cover the faults of others, 
but yet bring their own hearts to be tried by the 
manifesting light, may be assured that, whatever 
they may think of themselves, they are much in the 
same predicament as Joanna and her silly flock of 
followers. 



FAITH. 209 

The man of faith has distinct intentions, and he 
knows what he means by his creed. He has clear 
and defined ideas of his own wants when he prays, 
and gives good reasons for his strong hopes to those 
whom he would persuade. His mental objects are 
even more distinct than those of his senses, for they 
are the true things which reason discerns as belonging 
eternally to the design of God in making man a rea- 
sonable and religious being, and in creating an endless 
series of worlds to exercise and develop his intellect 
and affections forever. But doubt should not destroy 
inquiry. Every great truth, when first announced, 
meets with many antagonists, since that numerous 
class, the conceited, are not at first disposed to give 
their fellow-men very much credit for superior sci- 
entific, rational, or spiritual discernment, however apt 
they may be to believe, superstitiously, and to exag- 
gerate the renown of those whom it is the fashion to 
applaud. " Faith, however, is not our reason's labor, 
but repose." 

As the mathematician has his axioms which he can 
not doubt, and on which he elaborates his demonstra- 
tions, so the man who thinks of morality and religion, 
or his relations to society and to Heaven, must have 
his fixed and sure principles of argument and mental 
regulation. These principles constitute his spiritual 
faith. Hence true faith is the opposite of fancy, and 
the negation of fanaticism. It is knowledge made 
vita], and therefore potential. It is truth, so convinc- 
ingly perceived by reason, as to be a felt and controlling 
influence. Like wisdom, faith evinces its intelligence 
in deeds, or, rather, it is the governing and actuating 
power of the w T hole being, like a response of the soul 
to the impression of realities around it. As the sight 
of an object of interest, whether abhorrent or amiable, 
pervades all the body with a feeling of its presence, and 
every fiber of the frame is roused into appropriate 
14 



210 FAITH. 

action, so the perception of things as they are in their 
moral aspect toward us, stirs the whole soul with 
corresponding emotion. Such is the operation of 
faith ; it pervades with its power all who feel it, 
because it sees the true relationship of souls to their 
source, and to other beings. It is not dependent on 
intellectual acuteness, but on the entrance of that light 
which gives understanding and actuates reason. As 
all objects of interest appeal to the will, so those truths 
which are the objects of faith influence our desires and 
volitions, according to our moral perception rather than 
our mental acumen. Thus we discriminate between 
the true and the false, as well as between the good and 
the evil; and it is the mode of the faithful mind rather 
to detect the false, by feeling what is evil, than by 
research after the true, to discover w T hat is good. 
Trusting in God, the soul bears a talisman which 
indicates the character of whatever it touches. It has 
something to confide in, as well as to believe ; but it 
often happens that the wise and prudent fail to discern 
the beauty and suitableness of those revealed verities 
which come, like light, bearing its own evidence, and 
making heaven visible to simple minds that trust in 
God, because they feel his goodness as well as his 
wisdom. 

We believe many things in a casual way that have 
no influence on our conduct. We do not feel that they 
have any direct connection with our well-being; we do 
not experience real faith with regard to them. Thus 
we read a grand discourse on astronomy, admire it, 
consent to its truth, its wonderfulness, and then walk 
out, amidst the glories of the heavens, in pursuit of 
our pleasures, without thinking of the sun, moon, and 
the stars, because they seem to have nothing to do with 
us, nor we with them. Thus, too, we read the Bible, 
believe in God indifferently, admire his commandments, 
deem His anointed One the most sublime of saees 



FAITH. 211 

and of sufferers, and then go about our little businesses, 
forgetful alike of heaven and its excellences. The 
divinity of truth has not entered into our souls to live 
in us like a love unless it rules us. Such is the man- 
ner of true faith ; it realizes the fact, that heaven is 
really engaged about us, with us, and in us. 

Faith has an object and end, and employs the ap- 
pointed means for its attainment. To use the appoint- 
ed means for the attainment of ends, desired and fore- 
seen, is the business of faith. Like the mariner, 
whose hope and safety depend on his steering rightly, 
if we have faith, we can no more neglect to look out- 
ward, onward, and upward, than he can fail to re- 
gard the chart, the compass, and the stars, while he 
breasts the tempest, or takes advantage of the wind 
that wafts him homeward. Skill, chart, compass, 
stars, and a good bark, may not save the mariner from 
wreck, but faith never fails — Providence is always 
for it. 

I am speaking of Christian faith. There is a virtue, 
and there is a power in this faith, not from the logic by 
which it may be sustained and defended, but from the 
love which lives with it, of which love it is well said — 
Omnia tegit, omnia credit, omnia sperat, omnia susti- 
net. Reason belongs to it, because it derives its light 
from the Divine Logos, the source of knowledge and 
wisdom. Its discernment is far above intellectual 
keenness, since it perceives — and acts accordingly — 
that not a desire can be induced in keeping with celes- 
tial charity, without a constraint upon Almightiness to 
fulfill it. The very nature of goodness demands this 
coincidence. True Christian faith is, therefore, in- 
capable of denial. It works with the power of God ; 
for he who dwelleth in love, divelleih in God. Thus it 
performs those miracles which are wonders only to the 
ignorant and unbelieving, such as converting a profane 
man into a wisely devout being, and filling a wretch 



212 FAITH. 

with peaceful raptures, by creating a new world of 
sinless thought and feeling within the soul. It is not 
afraid amidst the billows. It sees and hears, and holds 
Him who says to the winds, Peace, and to the waves, 
Be still. Nothing can resist it but the selfishly busy, 
hard heart of man — and that it strives to soften and 
subdue, not so much by upbraiding its obduracy, as by 
persuading it to trust the outstretched arm of Him 
whose nature and property it is ever to have mercy. 
It calls no fire from heaven but that which shall kindle 
a new life to diffuse itself in everlasting blessedness. 

Though this faith comes by hearing, it is not by 
merely hearing arguments. It comes by hearing the 
Word of God, which does not ratiocinate, because that 
word is reason itself, and comes home to the heart that 
is open to it, and commends itself to the conscience as 
the address of the creative to the created mind. What 
it speaks is vital truth — the expression of the Divinity. 
Can a real Christian be found walking in his new life 
merely because he has been convinced by document- 
ary evidence? If so, there is a delusion somewhere, 
and Christianity, instead of proving its origin by its di- 
vine consistency, contradicts itself. No, it is God- 
work — a new existence. The Author of this faith de- 
clares that he receives not testimony from man, and 
chat the Spirit bears witness because the Spirit is 
truth. And we do not see how any other witness can 
be available toward forming the faith of a disciple of 
Jesus ; since, in order practically to know his doctrines 
in their living power, it is first of all necessary, accord- 
ing to His own saying, to obey His will and do what 
He commands. 

The secret cause of skepticism is the habit of im- 
morality. Bosom-sins make infidels. If a man have 
no restraint upon the passions but that of his physical 
convenience and the desire to avoid the reproach of 
society, he already denies the right of God to com- 



FAITH. 213 

rnand him. He does not honor his Maker by obeying 
His laws, nor will he, because he seeks honor only 
from man, so that he can not be approved in his con- 
science, nor clear in his judgment, concerning any 
question of duty. In short, how can he, whose prin- 
ciples of acting and thinking are not based upon the Di- 
vine authority of the moral law, be capable of conclud- 
ing rightly concerning the religion that grows out of 
that law ? He must be immoral in the fullest sense, 
and therefore his understanding must be darkened in 
all spiritual respects. He can not desire to have 
Christianity proved to him : it would be madness and 
despair to him, by convincing him of sin. of righteous- 
ness, and of judgment, from which he could have no 
escape until, thoroughly repentant, and changed in 
soul, he so believe as to embrace the Saviour, who 
comes as God, to bestow a new nature and eternal life 
on all who welcome the salvation, and long for immor- 
tal honor after the divine method, or in a manner co- 
incident with the plan of God. To seek immortal 
benefit in any other way, must be to disregard the per- 
fection of the Deity, and to despise the consistency of 
His attributes. 

But, as before suggested, morality itself is unknown 
without religion ; and the religion that is not divine is 
false, and so must be the morals derived from it. This 
is confirmed by all the theism, and mythology, aud 
polite usages of the world, without revelation ; for 
without the expression of the mind of God on the sub- 
ject of duty, however communicated, there is not suf- 
ficient truth manifested to elevate the soul of man 
above his selfishuess, nor sufficient motive to cause 
him to love his neighbor as himself ; because the beauty 
and the bliss of holiness are never seen until the Holy 
One reveals Himself, either in the law, which speaks 
His will, or in the gospel, which livingly illustrates it. 
The man, therefore, who knows nothing practically of 



214 FAITH. 

the doctrines of the Bible, so far from being capable of 
purity of conduct, can not even imagine what the word 
sin means. Hence moral ignorance, or, what is the 
same thing, irreligious education, is necessarily pro- 
ductive both of hardness of heart and obtuseness of 
mind, with regard to good and evil, whatever may be 
the sensitiveness to natural emotion, and whatever the 
intellectual acuteness. The remedy for this is godly 
training, not task-work, but Christianity exemplified — 
the light of life. The child nurtured in the charity of 
Jesus never doubted his Divinity and never will. 

That was better than a mathematical demonstration, 
which the man felt who stretched out his palsied hand 
when the Son of God said — Do it. The power was 
in the will which obeyed, because the act of will was 
faith. Lazarus, and the son of the widow of Nain, 
did not want reasons beyond their own consciousness, 
for believing Him who is the resurrection and the life ; 
nor does the man who, having obeyed the word, comes 
as impotent, to receive power, need any other evidence 
in behalf of the Saviour's claims than the fact, that, in 
having come, he feels full of a new life, and delights in 
the law of love, because God therein binds Himself to 
be man's salvation eternally. The suitability of a rem- 
edy is proved only by its use, and so the evidence of 
Christianity is experimental, and not a matter either of 
logic or of hearsay merely. Though a statement of 
facts is essential to belief, yet the credential of the 
statement is in the very nature of the facts, and not in 
the seeming trustworthiness of the persons who an- 
nounce them. Therefore, if an angel from heaven de- 
clare any other, this gospel alone can be true, because 
in it God speaks to the conscience of man. Truth, like 
the light, bears witness for itself, to those who can 
see it. 

But it will be said, What is truth ? It is Heaven's 
answer to the demands of reason. It is whatever is 



FAITH. 215 

true : and, moreover, it is whatever has been or will 
be, of God's making, in revelation to a soul, and for its 
good. Falsehood and delusion are whatever God has 
not made ; and if the New Testament did not meet the 
necessities of the soul, we should be bound to reject it 
as an imposition. Faith tells the truth, and has courage 
to own doubt concerning what is doubtful, because, in 
this world, darkness is as necessary as light. Faith, 
however, is always positive in will, but it is good-will. 
It can not hate any thing but uncharitableness. 

The manifestation of moral and religious truth is in 
the moral consciousness ; and the arguments of infi- 
dels are altogether beside the mark, unless they have 
obeyed the gospel, and found it not to answer its pro- 
fessed purposes. 

The doctrines of the Xew Testament are so reason- 
able, and yet so much superior to our reason that it is 
impossible that man could have invented them. Men 
really do not naturally like such truths. There is not 
one of them to be found among the philosophers of 
heathenism ; and those of infidelity may be defied to 
show any instance in the history of mankind, in which 
the nature of evil and its cure was taught, except by 
revelation. So far from this, the Divine nature was 
acknowledged, only to be dishonored. 

He that is not willing to renounce his sins is not 
ready to receive the Saviour. What men refuse to be- 
lieve in the Bible is exactly that without which there 
is no hope nor godliness. They have no notion of being 
deemed so deeply iniquitous as to require that Om- 
nipotence Himself should redeem them by adopting 
their nature in a sinless state, and making atonement 
in it. They do not desire new principles of thought 
and holy motives of action ; they do not wish to ex- 
change their own spirit for that of Divine love. But 
mercy will be heard, and when man begins to feel that 
bis necessities are eternal, and yet all things fail, and 



216 FAITH. 

all friends forsake him, and leave him alone to meet 
death and darkness, then God makes Himself known, 
at the first cry for help, as the only and sufficient 
deliverer. 

The heavens reveal man's iniquity, and the earth 
rises up against him. All things conspire to condemn 
him, because all things demand faith in God, and yet 
God is not trusted nor sought. The Dispenser of 
all blessings must meet the evil-hearted in darkness. 
Their thoughts exclude the light, they can not see out 
of the solid grossness of their souls. They must still 
believe and tremble, from the consciousness that the full 
revelation of the Righteous One is yet to come. The 
reply to all questions is — Wait. God owns eternity; 
futurity, as well as the past, is all His, and in that futu- 
rity the reason of the present will appear. Such con- 
victions are inevitable to reason, but reason can not 
bear them without perceiving some clear proof that 
God undertakes the cause of all who will trust Him, to 
remove the curse by removing its cause. 

Perfect conformity to the known will of God is the 
object and aim of Christianity, and any thing less than 
this is not religion, but notional amusement and cere- 
monious observance. The test of the truth is open to 
all who sincerely desire to be satisfied, and philoso- 
phers have no right to their adopted name if they dis- 
claim the authority of Jesus Christ, before they have 
strictly observed the rules of His science. 

The experiment he proposes is this : — Yield to the 
will and see the result. Now, who among the scoffers 
has fulfilled the conditions which may qualify them 
to judge Christ? Have any of them worked out in 
their lives and thoughts the predicates of Divinity 
in the fruits of its spirit — love, peace, long-suffering, 
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance ? 
There is no law against these qualities. Whoever will 
practice them will know whether God is the Author of 



FAITH. 217 

Christianity or not, for no one can practice them with- 
out living and walking in the spirit of Christianity, and 
then, in fact, the kingdom of heaven is in him, and he 
can no more deny the divinity of the doctrines than he 
can the reality of his own life and happiness. The 
theory of divine morals is no more capable of making 
us moral, in the godly sense, than the theory of sounds 
can make us musicians. In order to excel, or even to 
understand excellence, we must practice what we 
know. The test is simple and perfect. That must be 
a bad religion which does not teach charity, and we 
must be bad at heart if we obey not that which enjoins 
it. Apply this to Christianity. It, and it alone, stands 
the test. Its Founder demands faith in its purity, faith 
working only by love — love to God, as the supreme 
good, and to man, because he is God's. Evil is to be 
overcome by good, cursing by blessing, malignant treat- 
ment by benevolence and prayer. In short, universal 
good-will, exemplified in the life, is the only consist- 
ent Christianity, for that alone is Christ's spirit ; and 
therefore, intolerance and persecution, in every form, 
can spring from those only in whom His spirit is not. 

We see that* the rule is most perfectly fair, because 
obedience must end in blessedness, and the only ob- 
jection to the required submission must arise from 
aversion to all that deserves the name of virtue, or 
else, why not be patient, good, gentle, faithful, temper- 
ate, charitable, in the divine sense ? He who would 
be great in soul must endure all that seems contrary 
to himself, from some mighty love, which shall enable 
him, with its unconquerable hopes, to stand unshaken 
as a rock amid the billows. 

Patience is the foundation of all virtue, and includes 
in it all excellences. The patience of earthly ambi- 
tion is but pride working on in the obstinacy of its own 
nature. The patience of godliness is like that which 
would have borne the cross to Calvary, despite the 



218 FAITH. 

fainting of the body. The love within it is faithful 
unto death, despising such shame as mere suffering 
can bring, while demonstrating the charity of Heaven, 
even toward those who, in their bitter imbecility, sneer 
at God thus manifest. 

The man of faith is, then, a decided character. The 
instinct of his reason is a strong will, from a strong 
motive. He answers the questions, What will you do ? 
what will you be ? and says, I will walk worthy of my 
vocation ; I will be a son of God. The Almighty allows 
and grants what such a mind wishes. A man without a 
determined final faith, an undoubting trust in the true 
God, is but as a dry leaf on the wings of the wind, car- 
ried about by impulses unresisted and unavoidable. As 
the leaf can not take root, and it rests but to rot, so the 
faithless man has no living power in him to draw vigor 
and beauty from the elements. There is no settled hope 
without faith, and therefore, no going forth of the pro- 
phetic and realizing soul into the future eternal firma- 
ment of the true heavens ; but fancy, instead, makes 
dreams of memory, and amuses or terrifies with phan- 
toms uncertain as the dance of moonbeams on the 
sea. Such a mind has no supreme good, for the sake 
of which every other object is felt to be inferior and to 
be held in abeyance, to be enjoyed or endured, mere- 
ly as it may serve as means to the attainment of the 
grand end — the unalienable possession of that good. If 
we meet a man asking for opinions, we meet one inca- 
pable of making up his mind ; he has not found any 
object for his faith, he is not in love, he is not living 
for the Being that demands and deserves his whole 
devotion. His earth may be like the garden of Eden 
to him ; but he walks in the midst of it, as Adam might 
have walked in Paradise, without God, and without 
Eve, without the bosom evidence of Divine love to his 
large human heart, with its power of multiplying ob- 
jects of love, infinitely and forever. 



FAITH. 219 

Christianity, then, is full of motives for us. It is the 
religion of experiment, research, knowledge, faith, 
hope, and love. Hence science follows it. Examine, 
is its watchword, make manifest, bring all things to 
the light and see how all truth is conformable to the 
character of the revealed God, and every real discov- 
ery is the expression of His mind. Hence the tend- 
ency of true philosophy to ameliorate the fall of man 
Thus beauty is truth, order is truth, law is truth, love 
is truth, holiness is truth, happiness is truth, because 
they originate in the Divine will, and are seen in creat- 
ures only as evidences of the Creator. We can not 
account for them without faith in His perfections ; nor 
can we behold their contraries without a conviction 
that an opposing agency has been permitted, only that 
Goodness may be manifestly Almighty. Antagonism is 
universal, that created intelligence might every where 
know that the Infinite One holds the balance of ex- 
istence in eternity. Good and evil are positive con- 
ditions of God's own existence, as made known to 
creatures, for He can not be known but as the Au- 
thor of law, thus constituting obedience — good, disobe- 
dience — -evil. Created mind must grow by exercise, 
inquiry must be carried to the utmost, and this it can 
not be without the permission of evil. It can not doubt 
enougtuwithout this contradiction. Do you say dar- 
ingly, What is the use of sin ? If you feel afraid of 
its horrible nature, as well as of its consequences, God 
himself will answer you — it is to prove the love and 
power of him who cures it, and yet condemns it. 
Penitence is always met by mercy. But, if you would 
be happy in unholiness, God will yet reveal himself to 
you — but in fire, for the Divinity is to be seen also as 
the terribleness of righteousness. Herein is the rea- 
son of faith ; souls are required to rely upon their Ma- 
ker as the reconciler of all things to Himself. He 
must reconcile them by His own acts, because all 



220 FAITH. 

things are possible with Him. Thus Christianity bids 
us look to the contrariety within us and around us, 
in creation, in history, in our own experience, for the 
purpose of teaching us whose is the power, and to 
force us upon Jehovah's help, as the only sufficiency 
of a deathless spirit. 

All mystery begins and ends in one word — God. 
Every mind must be stopped in its progress by pain, 
unless it turn toward the Almighty. He has imparted 
to us rational consciousness, that we might feel our 
need of His guidance, and enjoy it by apprehending 
that His purpose is love, and that He is our everlasting 
Providence. We would ignorantly satisfy ourselves, 
from ourselves and from creatures, but our wants 
refer us back to Him from whom we wander. He is 
the competency of our reason, and, whether we know 
it or not, our spiritual nature demands exactly what 
the New Testament reveals as the birthright of our 
regenerated being — to be heirs of God, and to be actu- 
ated by an inhabiting spirit that shall respond to the 
benevolence of the Father who makes the Son of man 
the inheritor of His kingdom and glory. This is not a 
mere sounding sentiment, but the necessary result of 
Divine and human being. 

The love that conquers all things is the love of 
truth. This is the living principle of faith. But abso- 
lute truth is the will of God. It can not be a creat- 
ure's, but faith is given, that is, spiritual strength, to 
struggle for self-mastery. This power is called into 
action by insights into the vastness of Divine love, for 
conformity with which it causes a man to hunger and 
thirst, because the soul, instructed by Heaven, sees 
that the happiness fit for man is completed only in 
fellowship with God. The true believer always con- 
nects the moral attributes of Deity with his concep- 
tions of Divine power, and with him, therefore, Provi- 
dence is but another name for the Creator's faithful- 






FAITH. 221 

ness to His creatures. Throughout the wide universe, 
Faith beholds evidence that Goodness regulates Might, 
so that all her expectations are raptures, because all 
futurity, all eternity, can be nothing but the unfolding 
of love. Hence Death is no longer the King of Ter- 
rors, with uplifted hand ready to strike the trembling 
heart, but like an angel at the bed of a slumbering 
child, fanning it to sleep with a lily plucked in Para- 
dise, and filling the soul with visions of Heaven, by 
blending in brightness before its eyes the sweetest 
images of earthly beauty and affection. 

Charity, in its full acceptation, is nothing but faith 
in God, applied to one's own necessities, and proved 
by practice. From this loving faculty of faith it enters 
into the heart of a man to understand that the doc- 
trine of forgiveness is divine, and shows us how the 
love of the Father obliterates iniquity, just as the light 
removes darkness, by destroying it and taking its place. 
By faith, we learn all things pertaining to the ways of 
the Almighty, in creation and in regeneration, in the 
life that now is, and in that which is to come. It sees 
that the ground of our standing in the anastasis is that 
on which we stand now — the redemption of our na- 
ture, and its perfect restoration, through the going 
forth of salvation from the heart of Immanuel, to all 
who are drawn to God by trusting to the immensity 
of love seen in that heart. When our Lord said, 
'• Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted,'' did 
he not teach the same truth as when he instructed his 
disciples to pray — " Forgive us our debts as we forgive 
our debtors ?" If we forgive not those who trespass 
against us, our Heavenly Father will not forgive us. 
What must it be to remain unrepentant and unforgiven, 
with eternity upon us ? The terrors of the infinite 
abyss and of utter darkness may express it — words can 
not. The devils that believe and tremble may con- 
ceive it, but no unbeliever can conceive it yet, nor can 



222 FAITH. 

he until he believes without hope, and has in his heart 
that faith of fear which excludes love, a state of mind 
sometimes witnessed here. What if it should last 
eternally ? To be unforgiving and unforgiven, to dwell 
forever in the burnings of our enmity against the Al- 
mighty, must be the fruition of faithlessness, for, with- 
out the hearty reception of mercy, sin must grow in 
its malignity forever. 

Good will is one with good faith. We can not show 
the real spirit of forgiveness without being in a fit state 
to ask and obtain pardon from Heaven. Although uni- 
versal charity is the universal law, and all sins abhorred 
by the sinner are covered by the hand of God, yet for- 
giveness is the proper business of the Son of man. It 
is the creature alone that is injured by sin, and the 
Holy One removes it, because He is the lover of His 
creatures. He gave the law because He could not but 
love what He had made, and He gloriously illustrated 
the nature of His law when He made full provision for 
curing the consequences of its Tbreach. And it is be- 
cause the Almighty is the Father and the Saviour, that 
He insists on a temper in man fully ready to forgive all 
offense when fully repented of, and this forgiveness is 
demanded by Him as an evidence of our estimation of 
His own mercy toward ourselves. But God can be 
merciful only as the Holy One, and those who would 
blaspheme His Spirit, by expecting mercy without 
holiness, have never forgiveness. 

We can not overlook or put out of our sight the idea 
of another's scandal and offense against ourselves, as 
long as we desire to keep at a distance from him ; and 
what is needed to make a true evangelical alliance is 
mutual repentance and forgiveness, or a fuller feeling 
of Divine love, for surely all sectarianism among 
Christians is a sin against Christians and against Christ. 
The separation of Christians and their dislike of each 
other, in consequence of opinions or of forms, seem to 






FAITH. 223 

intimate that those forms and opinions, of however little 
importance in themselves, are made to appear of great 
magnitude by the mist through which they are seen. 
The true faith doubtless possesses warmth enough in 
its charity to melt and remove all mere superficial dis- 
tinctions, not, indeed, by reducing them to a dull uni- 
formity of aspect, but as if into that sea of glass where 
the full beauty of heavenly light is seen in the variety 
of its harmonious refractions. 

Now we have probably perceived that man is very 
defective, without finding in his heart and his circum- 
stances strong motives for desiring an increase of faith. 
So there are motives for faith as well as in faith, be- 
cause it is the submission of the soul to reason from 
the felt fitness of truth to our understandings, and be- 
cause truth and reason are created for each other, and 
are one in the All-wise. Hence faith is evinced in 
obedience to the Divine will, because that will is the 
best, and alone to be infinitely trusted. God's will, in- 
deed, is the real essence or life of any being, for what 
He wills it to be, that is its perfection ; and we know 
what His will is toward us — sanctification, devoted- 
ness to Himself — a life of light like His. We know 
the wisdom of heaven, by seeing what it has done, 
and, if we believe it livingly, it will be manifested in 
us, either by doing or suffering, with the light and bloom 
of immortality upon us. 

The same power of mind by which we understand 
that the worlds were formed by the word of God, and 
that things that are seen were not made of things that 
appear, is that by which we also believe whatever is 
consistent with the character of the Creator. The 
man who, with a pure conscience, is brought into any 
trial, hopes for deliverance by the Almighty, and there- 
fore will not accept of any compromise with sin or Sa- 
tan, tyrants or death. He aims according to his hope, 
and trusts in him who shall abolish whatever is oppos- 



224 FAITH. 

ed to himself. Men of whom the world is not worthy, 
and who are rejected by it, are the trusters in God. 
Having become persuaded and possessed by the truth, 
or by a distinct consciousness of some Divine attribute 
in relation to themselves, they are incapable of doubt- 
ing the existence of whatever may be necessary to the 
fall manifestation of that attribute in their own souls ; 
and, knowing that contradictions exist only in created 
intellect, they look for the harmonizing of all Jehovah's 
appointments and permissions. Any act of God, felt 
in an especial manner by the man of faith, is therefore 
like a direct promise to his soul, the fulfillment of which 
is expected without faltering or fear. His reliance is 
ou the Omnipotent. There is no faith but that which 
endures, as seeing Him who is invisible. But then it 
is not incongruous and unreasonable. It infers from 
facts to facts, and judges what to hope from what is 
and has been. Thus faith looks for life through death, 
because both life and death are but parts of one pur- 
pose in God. It keeps the end'in view, and knowing 
nothing of chance-work, it looks for future things but 
as the results of things present, since the Divine Be- 
ing is evolving all events in the revelation of himself as 
the re warder of those who diligently seek him. And, 
as surely as a man yielding to nature, and trusting to 
feeling and experience, calmly closes his weary eyes 
at night, with an assurance, rather than a hope, that 
there will be a sunrise to-morrow ; so undoubtingly 
does the man of spiritual life and consciousness, when 
the shadows of death fall upon his eyelids, compose 
himself to sleep, with the certainty of a coming morn 
ing and a glory above the clouds. 

Such belief is essential to reason, for reason is nothing 
without religion, since she can not question the perfec- 
tion of Deity, nor suppose that the design of things is 
left incomplete, or can fail in execution. But this must 
be the case if man be made with hopes that end in 






FAITH. 225 

nothing — with capacities for life and knowledge, and 
the beatitudes of adoration, to be dashed to the ground 
like a beautiful vase, either in anger or by accident, 
from the trembling hand of its maker! There is not 
any accident with Omnipotence, and the wrath of 
Love must praise him. What he wills is what we 
want — and when our wills are coincident with holiness, 
we can not believe what shall not be. 

We have many motives why we should pray for an 
increase of faith, and not the least is the desirableness 
of being prepared to meet death peacefully. Christian 
life, when vigorous, always exemplifies this power of 
quietly triumphing over the last enemy, because faith 
realizes the fact of being already risen with him who 
died for us. But this peace precludes expression. 
When Dr. Hope was asked by Dr. Latham, shortly 
before his death, whether he felt quite happy, he re- 
plied, " Perfectly so — I could not have imagined the 
joy I now feel; my only wish is to convey it to the 
minds of others, but that is impossible. It is such as 
I could not have conceived possible." Now this was 
not a false peace, for he afterward said, il Christ is 
all in all to me." 

Faith is the necessity of the creature, without which 
there is no true idea of existence — for we can not bear 
to look into eternity without it. There is nothing pos- 
sible in the trackless future, save to faith: but faith al- 
ways sees its way. and can not miss it. Though, like 
Columbus on the waves of an untried Atlantic, it find 
no guide nor guerdon below, yet heaven above directs 
it in a right course to the riches of a new world, where 
all who arrive may exclaim, with the sublime naviga- 
tor, * It was Thou, O great God, who inspired me and 
conducted me !" 
15 



CHAPTER XII. 

HOPE A>~D FEAR. 

Hope and fear are the great ministers, masters, 
prophets, and seers of our life. But they are great 
deceivers as well as great seers, and always prophesy 
falsely to those who are ill-disposed. They connect 
the past and the present with the future in their vis- 
ions, and impart a power to our spirits by which we 
experience whatever degree of pleasure or of pain 
may arise from the prospect of the fulfillment or the 
disappointment of our desires. Hope governs us by 
promises — and fear, by threats. They have, conse- 
quently, an influence on all our motives, and constitute 
the sole persuasives to voluntary action, with a view 
to coming events. They are, therefore, involved in 
the consideration of every part of our subject, and 
might, perhaps, with propriety have been disposed of 
without distinct investigation, but that a clearer notion 
of these emotions may enable us more fully to discern 
the nature of moral government, and the manner in 
which anticipated punishment or reward operates on 
the mind to improve its volitions. Here a world-wide 
expanse of metaphysical speculation opens before us — 
the lights and shadows of interminable mysteries are 
there ; but we will not enter, lest both writer and 
reader should find no end amidst those mazes in which 
angels have lost their way. There is sufficient of a 
plain and practical nature to be seen, while we stand 
on safe ground, and observe what is doing among the 
denizens of this world, under the persuasions of these 
eloquent, but also most delusive teachers. 

There are three modes in which both hope and 
fear influence our nature, — by appealing to our in- 






HOPE AND FEAR. 227 

stincts, to our natural affections, and to our reason. 
Our instincts are moved by those impressions on our 
senses which convey ideas of pain or pleasure, irre- 
spective of moral considerations : thus certain proper- 
ties of things, being the natural provocatives of appe- 
tite, are associated with desire for mdulger.ee ; and, 
as far as those appetites are concerned, we may hope 
for the possession of their appropriate object, or we 
may fear their loss. These instincts imperatively de- 
mand attention, since they are the groundwork of our 
social existence, as creatures dependent on bodily 
adaptation and supply ; and however philosophic may 
be our habits of contemplation when well furnished 
with bodily appliances, our reasonings will avail noth- 
ing in appeasing the pangs of hunger or of thirst. It 
is doubtless the prerogative of reason to control the 
instincts by religious and moral motives, by hopes and 
fears, in relation to our Maker, our fellow-man, and 
our family affinities ; the body must be so far kept in 
subjection, as that appetite may be appeased, as a ne- 
cessity toward higher purposes, rather than indulged, 
as an end in itself; but yet the physical demands of 
our existence are so immediately imperative, and so 
regular in their recurrence, that to reason against 
their dominion, without providing for their moderate 
indulgence, is as vain as to bid the ordinances of nature 
to obey your voice, because the alternation of light and 
darkness happens not to suit your notions of propriety. 
Holiness is obedience to law for divine purposes, and 
God is obeyed, by using the body under the blessed 
restrictions of Christian temperance; for thus the 
whole life becomes eucharistic, being dedicated to the 
Holy One in prayer and thanksgiving. If then, even 
the devoutest saint must yield, and that in faith, to the 
instinctive cravings which arise from the state of the 
body, how shall we suppose that men whose minds 
are moved for the most part by appetite alone, shall 



228 HOPE AND FEAR. 

be able to resist them. He must have a strong spirit- 
ual faith of some kind who is not a rebel at heart, 
when called upon by authority to starve, while he sees 
that the plenty of his neighbor is so protected that 
even charity can not touch it. 

Although reason has no morality but in governing 
the instincts, yet if the instincts be not suitably pro- 
vided for, nature is outraged. To offer a book to a 
man who wants bread, or to promise the advantages of 
intellectual advancement to one who sees no prospect 
of obtaining another meal, is to insult the God of pro- 
vidence in the person of hi3 needy creature ; and to 
inform a man of religious duty who has never seen a 
family virtue, is to tell him of something beyond his 
faculties. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, are as 
binding and as divine as any commands in the de- 
calogue; and the way in which the Almighty teaches 
the hopes of heaven, is daily to supply the wants which 
belong to earth; and those who place themselves will- 
ingly in the way, so as by the craft of covetousness to 
divert the gifts of God's bounty from the homes of 
their fellow-men, are hateful at heart now, and are to 
be hereafter especially marked as the accursed. To 
do good, is to communicate to the needy, and to 
administer comfort to the distressed. This word com- 
fort means so much of present accommodation as will 
allow hope to sit smiling with us in our homes, and 
prevent the intrusion of any dispiriting apprehensions 
of coming want. But if hope and comfort be wanting 
in any dwelling, what can be the motive most prevalent 
there ? Ask what is the temper of a tiger hunted into 
his lair, and there torn by dogs; and then ask what 
a sinful man feels, withh is capacity of loving, hating, 
hoping, and fearing aggravated to the utmost, and 
having persuaded himself that the selfishness of his 
potent neighbor has rendered his home a hell. It is 
true, he may experience even a more intolerable and 



HOPE AXD FEAR. 229 

a more common torment; he may feel that he has 
brought desolation and misery upon himself and his 
family by his own guilt. But in either case, how is he 
to be helped ? I say by encouragement to hope, and 
by his reasons to fear. Let him feel that the con- 
demnation of his neighbor does not deliver himself 
from judgment. As a rational being, let him be per- 
suaded to exert himself. But how can that be, without 
hope ? Instinct prompts to seek death, rather than to 
live on in a world without hope : and it will be no 
wonder, if one who knows nothing of the Divine method 
of doing justice, should imagine he is fulfilling the law 
of Heaven, by wreaking his own vengeance according 
to the blindness of his fury and his ignorance. That 
man can have no idea of hope, but in relation to his 
instincts. First, show him plainly how to satisfy his 
appetites safely, comfortably, and with a sense of 
home and fellowship and responsibility, and then you 
may be able to convey to him the idea of a nobler 
enjoyment and a diviner hope. Give him means ; give 
him something to do for himself; and then instruct 
him as to what the Saviour has done for him. He 
will scarcely be convinced of sin by his sufferings ; he 
must be. able to look at the reason for his hopes and 
his fears; he must be softened and soothed by the 
sacred spirit of kindness bringing proofs before his 
eyes, that Heaven has not forsaken him, but rather 
has sent angels to minister unto him, before he can 
feel afraid of his own sins. The thief on the cross 
was not converted by his own crucifixion, but because 
he saw that the Son of God was crucified. This man 
hath done nothing amiss, was his reason for calling him 
Lord, since his own conscience informed him that, if 
the righteous suffer, there must be a kingdom beyond 
this world. The Saviour's good deeds had been such 
mighty witnesses for him, that his Divinity was plainly 
seen by the man who felt that he needed salvation ; 



230 HOPE AND FEAR. 

and thus God ever reveals Himself through those who 
are obedient to His will; and if we expect to teach 
the divine character of Christianity without embodying 
its spirit in ourselves, in deeds of kindness, we are but 
verbal Christians, ready, perhaps, to give our bodies to 
be burned in proof of the sincerity of our opinions, and 
all our goods to feed the poor, for the magnification of 
our bubble merits ; while charity, in the true sense, 
never moved a thought in our minds or a muscle in 
our limbs. But there is nothing so terrible as the 
unresisting gentleness of a soul governed only by truth, 
and determined to prove it by dying, if necessary, to 
declare it. It is this that appeals to the Almighty, as 
the vindicator of the oppressed, the innocent, the 
obedient; and it proves that Jesus, the Lamb led to 
the slaughter, w r as really the Son of God, and that his 
blood was on his murderers only to save them, if they 
repented in His name. 

We can not, however, make men comfortable any 
more than we can make them conscientious, in spite of 
themselves — they must themselves be improved — their 
souls must be set right before their circumstances can 
be permanently benefited. Those can not be helped 
who can not be caused to feel their own responsibility, 
and be induced to use the means that Providence sup- 
plies for the purposes of social intercourse and comfort. 
The grand difficulty with criminals, in all grades of de- 
pravity is to convince them that they are so very faulty 
as you seem to think them. If their feelings were as 
sensitive as those w r ho pity them, they would die of 
remorse ; but this is a state of mind rarely known in 
our prisons, except by those who, under some sudden 
provocation, have committed violence against those 
whom they really loved. Hence it is that inspectors 
of prisons have declared so many of their inmates to 
be incurable. There is no power in manacles and 
misery to convince of sin — but a few soft words 



HOPE AXD FEAR. 231 

aud gentle looks from Sarah Martin or Elizabeth Fry, 
or some such firm, fine soul, possessed by God's 
charity, can bring tears from the heart of any man 
who is not mad, and even from the mad too. Re- 
morse can have no place in a mind that has no desire 
for amendment, and that desire can not spring from 
fear, since fear knows nothing of desire but to avoid 
suffering. Something morally beautiful must be ap- 
prehended, some lovely spirit of encouragement must 
come, some hope with regard to a better standing for 
the poor wretch himself must be induced, and then 
there will be some foundation on which to build. But 
public justice, in the estimation of criminals in general, 
is but a cunning trap contrived to catch them, and pre- 
serve others from their depredations and violence. 
They commonly no more associate ideas of sin with 
their sufferings than they would with those of a wild 
beast caught in a gin. They only think themselves un- 
fortunate in not having their own way. while, at the 
same time, they grant that you have a perfect right to 
protect yourself from them. Hope or fear, in a moral 
sense, they scarcely understand. Such a state of mind 
may be traced to three causes. — First, a habit of dis- 
comfort: secondly, total ignorance of religious, and 
therefore of moral obligation ; thirdly, positive defect of 
understanding, from some degree of insanity or idiot- 
ism. The majority of criminals spring at first from a 
class that are born and bred in crowded wretchedness, 
to whom it is an object of ambition and honor to become 
members of a swell-mob. or to act in the capacity of a 
meretricious decoy to perdition. Nor can this be very 
surprising, when we find medical men reporting to the 
Poor-Law Commissioners thus : — " I attended a family 
of thirteen, twelve of whom had typhus fever, without 
a bed, in a cellar — without straw or timber shavings, 
frequent substitutes. In another house I attended 
fourteen patients: all lay on the boards, and during 



232 HOPE AND FEAR. 

their illness never had their clothes off. I met with 
many cases in similar conditions. Yet, amidst the 
greatest destitution and want of domestic comfort, I 
have never heard, during twelve years'' practice, a com- 
plaint of inconvenient accommodation." This was at 
Derby, in 1836, without a famine. We see that this 
habit of discomfort and wretchedness exists till it 
actually destroys humanity, by so blunting the mental 
faculties, and depressing the sensibilities both of soul 
and body, as to render men and women incapable of 
reasoning and acting for themselves. I have referred 
to a comparatively comfortable place and people; but 
if we look into the abodes of wretchedness in Ireland, 
for instance, or only peruse the record scattered to the 
world in newspapers, we shall find whole families 
consisting of scores — fathers and mothers, and their 
parents and their children, sleeping, starving, and dying 
together, on the same floor, with scarcely a sheet or a 
blanket among them, amidst indescribable accumula- 
tions of dirt from the cattle under the same roof. Thus 
the malaria accompanying ignorance and want poisons 
the mind as well as the blood. In this prevalence of 
inhuman destitution, we see at once the'impossibility 
of moral training, since those decencies of life which 
form the basis of virtue must be unknown among 
such herds of unhappy beings. That a state of brain 
amounting to irresponsible incapacity must certainly 
often result from this degradation, need scarcely be 
shown, especially when we remember that raw spirits 
are the common stimulants of parents in such states (at 
least in our large manufacturing towns), and that their 
children consume immense quantities of opium. The 
business of people under such circumstances, is to place 
themselves as nearly as possible in a state of mind that 
knows neither hope nor fear in connection with things 
around them ; and by listless vacancy, or by intoxication, 
to indulge themselves with dreams in which the soul, 






HOPE AXD FEAR. 233 

unfettered by cold and rigid facts, may vindicate her 
attributes, and bring into being a world where the wild- 
est affections may riot as they list. The absence of 
physical comfort; while forbidding its proper enjoy- 
ments, and diminishing the probability of its continu- 
ance, tends to destroy the hope of life, and of course, 
also, in every respect, to lessen its value. Death 
becomes so familiar as to be no longer fearful; the 
fostering of life is then but a wenk instinct, and natural 
affection only an excitant of desperation. Where half 
the children die before reaching the fifth year, and 
seventy-six out of one hundred of these die before they 
reach nine months, as is the case in those dense places 
populated by the poor, as in Liverpool and Manchester, 
we can not wonder that domestic hopes and fears soon 
die, or live only in confusion. 

It is not to be questioned that immorality constantly 
tends iu all respects to degrade human nature, and 
that the more strikingly from contrast, in highly civ- 
ilized society ; and the strongest proof of this debasing 
tendency is found in the fact, that neither hope nor 
fear will rouse those who are once brought down to 
its depths to make any effort to elevate themselves, 
unless constantly encouraged and directed and assist- 
ed by those who are sustained by Christian motives to 
work with all their might, as for the salvation of im- 
mortal souls. 

Those who have no consideration for the comfort 
of others are in danger of losing their own, just as the 
man without objects of affection soon becomes a bur- 
den to himself as well as to others. This state of 
indifference to others never occurs without the sub- 
jection of the man to some sensual vice that obscures 
his moral perception, and so far causes him to ap- 
proach to the state of an idiot. The social decencies 
gradually disappear, and, as in the awful case of the 
habitual drunkard, so, in all selfish abandonment, the 






234 HOPE AND FEAR. 

horrible derangement of the heart daily grows stronger, 
until reason is at length led captive by the tyrannous 
fiend. Habitual drunkenness is the type of all vice, 
and it is that form of madness which is not only the 
most disgusting, but also the most difficult to manage. 
Hope and fear lose their hold upon the soul, or have 
no power to persuade to better conduct. The man 
can not refuse to destroy himself as long as he can 
reach the stimulus that shall hurry him to destruction. 
Imprisonment for a long period is useful to such per- 
sons, because it forces on them the necessary absti- 
nence, and allows reason to awake from her frightful 
trance. But yet, unless a pledge bind the conscience, 
and the man feel socially engaged to improve, with 
the consciousness of many eyes being on him, and 
many hearts interested in his success and watching 
for his welfare, his hopes and fears will die away, and 
he will fall again into the slough. 

We must raise men's ideas of good and evil, and 
give them God's estimate of right and wrong, if we 
would induce them to make effectual efforts to save 
themselves. The noble hope and the worthy fear of 
the Christian can alone animate society in the divine 
manner. The fear that is the principle of wisdom, 
and the hope that can not be confounded, do not spring 
out of the ground, but they are communicated from 
soul to soul, under that ministry of the Spirit in which 
men taught of Heaven speak faithfully of their knowl- 
edge and expectancies. But the child that is informed 
of no duty but to help itself, and knows no object of 
interest for his soul, beyond the means of obtaining 
the meals of the day or a shelter from the weather, 
hopes and fears only in relation to the bitter pains 
and savage pleasures of his miserable necessities, nor 
throughout his stinted lifetime can he rise out of this 
entire pauperism of existence, unless, lifted by some 
kind spirit above the direct dead weight of his fleshly 






HOPE AND FEAR. 235 

wants, he become sensible of his spiritual being and 
necessities, and, through the teachings and the sym- 
pathy of an awakened soul, taste the true privilege 
of an undying humanity. Immorality and its misery 
must be great hardeners, indeed, to produce such 
indifference to life and immortality as we constantly 
witness among the ignorant and ungodly. But if we 
look into the facts of such cases, what do we learn ? 
Is it true that the haggard wretch in the condemned 
cell now argues with the chaplain, that, as he ex- 
presses himself, to be hanged is the end of it? Is it 
true that a life of guilt has been so hard and horrible, 
that the sinner's only consolation is an endeavor to 
persuade himself, with a scornful smile, that in a few 
hours he is to be as if he had never been ? It is true. 
And is it true that that miserable being was once 
hushed to sleep upon a bosom warmed by a love 
intensified with the remembrance of Him who drew 
mysterious life from a woman's breast, and called her 
mother? Is it true that the culprit is he who was 
nurtured in heavenly reverence and love, and who, as 
a child, heard gentle whisperings of prayer for him, 
from the lips that kissed his pleasant cheek ? and did 
that child's own mother teach him to kneel, with 
hands upraised in hers, and eyes like hers turned 
toward heaven, and lisp, Our Father? It is not true. 
Such a case we can not find. These words of prayer 
have never been the earliest to form themselves in an 
infant's language and understanding, without being 
the last to leave the heart of the man. Many a child 
trained in godly admonition, has indeed turned prodi- 
gal, and been selfish and miserable enough in his way- 
wardness; but in coming to himself, he has remem- 
bered his father's house, and with the remembrance 
came humility and hope ; but the unhappy man, who, 
because he knows not why he should hope, is deter- 
mined not to fear, has really never been vitally, prac- 



23G HOPE AND FEAR. 

tically, instructed to believe in God as the author of 
life and immortality to the guilty and condemned. 
That is a valid plea with Jehovah, which David utters, 
" Thou didst cause me to hope upon my mother's breast. 11 
Yes, God is the God of hope and patience, and every 
soul that He has made has a right to depend upon his 
hand for every help, as long as the claim is made in 
the name and for the sake of the Divine humanity. 
Human beings are to be treated in a humane manner. 
But it requires immense faith to be kind enough to 
those who seem to have nothing to recommend them 
to our hearts, but their depravity and their danger. 
We can not conquer them but with a godlike spirit. 
We, at least, must have no fear in our love, that we 
may show them the terrible nature of disobedience, 
and prove that it is an advantage to die in resisting 
sin, because there is a life to come. Our life must be 
the expression of our faith in the eternal decision. 
" I will continually hope, and yet praise Thee more 
and more," must be the temper of our spirits, be- 
cause we hope in the Almighty, in despite of all 
appearances. This devotedness to God's service and 
manifest joy in it can alone demonstrate the fearful- 
ness of offending the Discerner of hearts. The most 
obtuse of criminals, in this manner, can not but see 
that the pleasure of doing good is a fact; and as there 
is no power of seeing God without benevolence in 
one's own heart, so there is no way of manifesting 
the demands of God upon the conscience without 
" the visible rhetoric of a holy life," and depraved 
men never tremble but when^hey witness this vital 
mode of preaching righteousness and judgment to 
come. When Mrs. Fry first addressed the female 
prisoners in Newgate, she spoke of Christ having 
come to save sinners, even those who might be said 
to have wasted the greater part of their time in es- 
trangement from their Maker. What was the con- 



HOPE AND FEAR. 237 

sequence ? " Some asked who Christ was ; others 
feared that their day of salvation was passed." Igno- 
rance had done its work, but it was not because those 
abandoned creatures had no taste for truth, but be- 
cause no one had cared for their souls. With tears 
of joy they welcomed the formation of schools for 
their children. Mrs. Fry succeeded in making prisons 
places of reformation, simply because she set about 
the work with faith enough for the mighty occasion. 
The sheriffs, the ordinary, and the governor of New- 
gate, thought her experiments hopeless. But the 
humble and meek are always to be exalted, for they 
rely on something above themselves; faith takes hold 
on the hand of the Almighty, and passes over diffi- 
culties without seeing them. Mrs. Fry, at first, in- 
deed, " felt as if going into a den of wild beasts, such 
was the yelling and struggling;" but, trusting in 
Heaven, she labored calmly in love, and great was 
the change that came over the outcasts — " They soon 
became harmless and kind ;" or, in other words, the 
kindness shown to them was reflected in their own 
characters ; fear fulfilled its right office, in connection 
with hope, when opportunity and encouragement were 
afforded to industry and attention. What they need- 
ed was right occupation for their minds and hands — 
something to accomplish, with a reasonable expecta- 
tion of pleasure to themselves, and to those whom 
they could still love; for reformation is impossible 
without employment and without hope. The wants 
of the mind being thus supplied, many of those out- 
casts had reason, as one of them afterward wrote, 
" to bless the day that brought them inside the walls 
of Newgate." This was written by one who appear- 
ed hardened beyond recall, only because the angel 
Hope, with her stories of love and devotion, had never 
entered her miserable home. And who is there among 
the best of men and women that might not have been 



238 HOPE AND FEAR. 

equally incorrigible in vice, if those motives had not 
been presented to their hearts, without which hu- 
manity so readily gives place to ferocity, desperation, 
and madness. 

Hanging has been invented as a convenient substi- 
tute for Christian kindness ; and it has even been 
thought by grave men who read the Bible, that society 
has been improved by reflecting on the fact, that the 
wife of a forger has been hanged for helping her hus- 
band ; and it has been deemed to be obedience to God 
and the Saviour, to take the wailing babe, not a week 
old, from the bosom of its mother, that she might be 
pinioned for the scaffold. The criminal code, impris- 
onment, banishment, stripes, and the gallows, are in- 
ventions contrived in vain to cure or prevent those 
evils which grow in the heart of man. Under the 
artificial fostering of society, vices of the darkest dye 
luxuriate to the full. Law can not check them, be- 
cause acts of parliament do not enter into the affec- 
tions, and make no provision for their natural exercise 
and protection, development and prosperity. They 
provide only for the security of money, and those who 
have it to spend, or possess a craft by which they may 
get it. There is nothing in the law to encourage 
faith, hope, and charity, or to cheer the sensitive soul 
in its hunger after something it may, in the true 
sense, call its home and its own. The heart is not 
instructed by statutes, nor can its rights be defined and 
defended by folios. It is the Bible alone that presents 
religion as the refiner of our hopes and our fears ; the 
truths contained in that book are those which alone 
have force enough to render morality a business of the 
life, by claiming and controlling the thoughts and feel- 
ings, with respect to our eternal relationships, rather 
than from considerations of any passing convenience. 
It is God's truth that causes a man to feel that he be- 
longs to God, and is to be judged impartially. 



HOPE AND FEAR. 239 

The courts, either ecclesiastical or civil, are alike 
incapable of vindicating the oppressed and delivering 
the weak from the wicked. God must do that, and 
He does. But He has given into the hands of men 
the means of rendering all that is proper in human 
emotion promotive of social happiness, and woe be to 
those who possess those means and will not use them. 
Every child in the land should feel that he is loved 
both by God and man : and in love it should be trained 
with something for its heart to work with. Give it 
Bible-truths, with all their terribleness of beauty, not 
in mere letters, but in spirit, by mixing its interests 
with the interests of those who live out those truths 
in their daily activities. We want schools, not for 
tasks of book-work and stitching, but for fellowships 
in affection, industry, and thought, and wholesome 
fears. Without heart- work and the morality of homes 
on the plan of heaven, there is no remedy against the 
propagandism of hell, with its subtleties of misery, 
nursing infernal fire in the dark, till it bursts into 
flames that devour its irrecoverable victims, while so- 
ciety looks on and delicately shudders. Philanthro- 
pists, go on — your business must prosper; you work 
for those who laugh, but you work that they may 
reason and be saved. By the terror of iniquity, by 
the terror of the love that can not save the impenitent, 
by the holiness of Heaven, by the worth of souls, 
Christian philanthropists go about, like your Master in 
His work, for by the certainty of death and of life you 
shall conquer. 

But while advocating the authority of kindness and 
hope, we would not forget that fear is the parent of 
prudence and the teacher of wisdom ; since the antici- 
pation of danger is often its avoidance, and without 
foresight there can be no preparation. Fear is essen- 
tial to systematic perseverance in well-doing. There 
must always be a woe in not doing what is known to 



240 HOPE AND FEAR. 

be a duty, and the extent of this woe can not be too 
plainly declared. Even St. Paul felt that he would be 
but a castaway, if he relaxed in his faithfulness as an 
apostle and evangelist; but yet fear was not his mo- 
tive : he was constrained by love and affection and 
gratitude and hope, though he could have experienced 
nothing of these feelings, without a sense of the evils 
from which, through mercy, he was delivered. He 
felt the fearfulness of falling into the hands of the liv- 
ing God, without a propitiation ; and when he under- 
stood how justice was satisfied by the just atoning for 
the unjust, he saw that both reason and affection re- 
quired the entire submission of the redeemed life to 
the service of the Saviour. If we feel the terror of 
being eternally lost, it must be in the fact, that love 
itself must condemn us, because we are incapable, in 
our chosen maliciousness, of appreciating the love that 
would save us. There can be no hope for those who 
will not accept of mercy ; but, of course, with them 
remains a fearful looking forward to the fiery indigna- 
tion that must consume every adversary of God. But 
the energizing fear has always hope to help it. There 
must be the felt possibility of escape from the object 
dreaded, or fear at once deadens the soul in despair. 
Desire is the spring of all action and hope: and there- 
fore, to leave a man without something to desire, 
which may also be hoped for, is to chain him to death 
itself. But have men, under the Christian dispensa- 
tion, a right to deprive criminals of life, except to save 
life, as in case of deliberate murder? Are we to com- 
mend men to the mercy of God and entreat them to 
trust to it, and at the same time tell them that God in- 
structs us not to show them any mercy ourselves, in 
any other way than by depriving them of the possibil- 
ity of showing the sincerity of their repentance and 
amendment; We must acknowledge the question 
difficult to answer. 









IiOPE AND FEAR 241 

Airs. Fry, in her evidence before the committee of 
the House of Commons, well expressed the secret of 
successful government: " I think I may say we have 
full power among them (the female prisoners), for one 
of them said that it was more terrible to be brought 
up before me than before the judge, though we used 
nothing but kindness. I have never punished a woman, 
nor proposed a punishment." It is the holiness of 
this charity that subdues the heart. It would bring 
peace and order into the home of devils, if it could en- 
ter there, for it would bring reverence and hope along 
with it, like a revelation, as it is, of God himself. Yet 
fear is necessary; it is the only restraint upon those 
who have no regard for the interests of others. It is 
the only counter force to the hopes of the wicked — 
the only mastery over minds uninformed, uncharitable, 
selfish ; and therefore without the power of punish- 
ment there can be no government. 

Threatening and violence are the only arguments 
of those who obey not the law of God. It is but the 
depraved policy of cowards and hypocrites to resort to 
such means. Every generous mind can feel the force 
of generous motives, and therefore the best policy of 
government is to foster all that is generous, so that 
men may dread the dishonor of crime rather than it3 
punishment. The opposite system excites a pride 
and hardihood in vice, and gives crime a coloring of 
heroism, since it seems to set the villain at defiance, 
through his fears. But sin soon learns to be cour- 
ageous, and a conscience that knows nothing of right- 
eousness counts it honorable to brave death. 

Those who fear nothing are in the most fearful 
state ; all the danger of carelessness or a false confi- 
dence is theirs, and they rush on destruction like the 
horse in the battle, crying, Ha, ha! There is a natu- 
ral daring in some minds that seek enjoyment only in 
the face of danger. Their fiber is so insensible, that 



242 HOPE AND FEAR. 

they find the common aliment of souls insipid, and as 
with the rhinoceros, thorns, so to say, are but the 
condiments that increase their relish; yet they may 
be led by a child's hand. 

The only persons saved from the deluge were those 
who feared the threatened judgment, for God gives 
warning, and with it hope, that fear may work salva- • 
tion, and not despair. Fear is the proper state of I 
guilt, and Cain would have had no protective mark set ■ 
upon him if, in his terror he had not cried unto God ; 
for he who fears the wrath of Heaven is in a condition 
of mind to bear being preserved from the vengence of 
man. As long as there exists in the mind a dread of 
the just consequences to accrue from evil actions, the 
man is not incorrigible, as there yet remains a power 
of amendment, by presenting to him an object worthy 
of trust, and a means by which he may hope to es- - 
cape. But if he be saved, it is by hope — by something 
that inspires a reasonable expectation, something that 
nerves the arm and animates the heart. Fear may 
drive a man to the city of refuge, but hope imparts her 
strength to his limbs by her encouragements, and she' 
runs before to open the gate of salvation, that he may 
quickly enter. 

The love of life is the desire of happiness, a desire 
not here fulfilled — our hearts being set on wrong ob- 
jects, since our hopes and our fears equally deceive 
us. Every conscious creature desires to live as long 
as it finds it possible to hope and to enjoy, but we are 
apt to give our hearts to things that can neither be en- 
joyed nor trusted. If there are more suicides in the 
world than those believe who call the breath of the 
body the sole life of man, it is because there are so 
many men mad enough not to perceive that their Ma- 
ker has provided a remedy for all evil, and that He 
will supply abundance and peace to those minds that 
proceed in obedient confidence, trusting for provision 






BbPE AXD FEAR. 243 

to the hand that guides us on the way. If at any time 
we feel dissatisfied with the prospect of existence, it 
can only be from distrust of God or entire ignorance 
of His nature and property. We fail to look toward 
the light that flows down upon us from heaven : we 
have fixed the eyesight of our souls, with all the delir- 
ious love of our willful hearts, upon things that neither 
transmit nor reflect that light ; and when our imagina- 
tions cease to clothe them with delusive brightness, 
it seems as if the sun were quenched, and we were 
left alone with darkness and with death. We then 
feel the palpable gloom of that hell which is created 
within the heart, by fear constantly uttering a denial 
that the dominion of God is love. The faith that then 
actuates us is but as the trembling terror of a soul filled 
with the idea of the power that seems to encircle ex- 
istence with the shackles and scourges of an eternal 
tyranny. Guilt, that is self willfully seeking gratifica- 
tion without love, must despair when left without a 
desire that can be gratified but by aggravating its own 
misery. This doom of darkness appears to be impos- 
sible, but from the ignorance and insanity of believing 
life to consist of what we now possess rather than in 
what we are, as related to our Creator, both by our 
hopes and by our exigencies. The passion for death 
always springs from disappointment, and this arises 
alike from unwarrantable hope and panic fears. Thus 
we find that persons who live without religions feeling 
or a sense that life is the perpetuated gift of God, and 
who are unconscious of the Eternal's claim upon their 
souls, think of self-destruction whenever their head- 
long passions are thwarted by Providence. There are 
others who are driven to despair by false notions of 
religion. If they think of God, it is with no knowl- 
edge of His grace, imagining that He can forsake and 
forget them, just like those creatures whom we unduly 
trust. They take the evidence of their own emotions 



244 HOPE AXD FEAR. 

in testimony of the character of the changeless One, 
and therefore they can not know Him who is really 
seen only as the Saviour. They mistake the weari- 
ness of their own nerves for a sign of being appointed 
to perdition, while at the very moment they are in- 
vited by all the tenderness of Jesus to partake of his 
rest. Oh, that we always believed the words and 
deeds of God! Our own evil will would then no 
longer conjure up a relentless avenger to pursue us 
beyond refuge, but we should see that He who is the 
Just is also the Justifier. There may be, and, indeed, 
often is such a vision of sin in the heart, as to induce 
self-abhorrence and consequent despair; but it is an 
error, or rather an entire confusion of things that dif- 
fer, not to see that sin is hateful because it is inhu- 
man, and that man should not so" regard his own na- 
ture as to forget that the Lord of life has created and 
redeemed it for his own glory. 

We must not overlook the physical connections of 
despair. A brain that can not rest will be apt to cause 
hopelessness, from the bare irritation of restlessness, 
because the mind must feel destitute of all remedy 
when the nervous system can not sleep. The state 
of the body then becomes like that which accompanies 
the most painful emotion, and the muscular actions 
resorted to for the relief of the undefined uneasiness, 
together with the central disturbance of the brain, pro- 
duce a reflex operation on the mind, and fix upon it 
an accumulation of despondent ideas which frequently 
result in a madness so complete, that moral discernment 
is lost in the hurry of confused emotion, and the de- 
struction of the body seems the only mode of escape 
from the misery that is in it. The earliest appearance 
of this state should be met by the fullest sympathy, en- 
tire exemption from all demand, with change of occu- 
pation and of scene, with opportunity to use the mus- 
( rather than the mind ; but, above all, the calm of 



MOTE AND FEAR. U4T) 

religious hope is the medicine for the troubled heart 
and the weary brain. 

Religious despair is never witnessed except where 
revealed truth is either partially known, while some 
essential part of it is practically concealed, or else 
where the conduct contradicts the faith. A change 
of heart is demanded, but the free gift of the Spirit to 
that end, for all that ask it, is perhaps not positively 
announced or accepted. The heinousness of trans- 
gressing against a righteous God is fully and properly 
exhibited, and then, perhaps, so Far from showing that 
He is waiting to be gracious to all that come, the ter- 
rors of an unknown reprobation are proclaimed, in- 
stead of the reconciling efficacy of the cross. Thus 
sensitive spirits are driven to despair. They feel the 
serpent sin coiling around them, and crushing them 
with tortuous embraces. The poison works within 
them mightily, but the antidote they can not reach. 
The prevention of this awful malady is to be fouud 
only in the loving education of the faculties, and in re- 
liance upon Him who surely will impart the blessing 
he has promised to all who seek it. From the earliest 
dawning of light upon the mind let it be busy with ap- 
propriate objects, and be taught from the first that the 
proof that God hates sin is the fact that He loves 
every body. That blindness of soul which does not 
permit a man to know the fitness of the provision made 
for our nature in all its needs, can be cured only by 
the finger of God. With Him all things are possible, 
and therefore we dare not to talk of despair while 
professing to trust in Him. He carries on the train- 
ing of our spirits beyond the grave, and causes the mi- 
nutest seed of living faith to germinate and unfold into 
the fruition of eternity. 

11 Timor fundamcntum salutis" Yet fear itself is 
proportioned to our hopes, and our dread is rather to 
lose what we love than of meeting an indefinite evil. 



246 HOPE AND FEAR. 

Terror can not persuade those who have no hope, and 
desperation is beyond the influence of fear. The 
doctrines of the New Covenant are terrible to impeni- 
tence, but inviting as light to the repentant. Eternity 
offers nothing to be hoped without faith, and therefore 
there is no room for presuming on a salvation if not 
sought now; for hope is a present and praying princi- 
ple. He who fears God is afraid of nothing but sin, 
because he knows that nothing else can injure him. 
Thus Luther said, "Let them threaten me with death, 
with torture and the stake — what is all this to me ? 
It makes no impression on me. It is the merest trifle 
to the agony I endured in my religious life before I 
found a Saviour." 



CHAPTER XIIL 

LOVE, 

Faith is the test of love, and love is the test of 
faith. We can not believe and love, but because faith- 
fuluess and love are manifest in deed. Thus our 
Father in heaven never calls upon us to endure, as 
seeing him who is invisible, until he has demonstrated 
his claim upon our hearts. He gives us occasion to 
trust when he has taught us to love ; but only that 
faith and love, growing together, may find a fuller bliss 
in further evidence of His favor. 

If then you would train a child aright, imitate Hea- 
ven. Above all things make him believe you, because 
he has reason to love you. Let him feel and hear and 
fear your authority, because you obey and are bound 
to obey — God. Let him know who holds the abso- 
lute right to rule without being doubted; and that as 
Christ has commanded you to train the child for Him, 
you do so because the source of power is the source 
of good. A child needs not much reasoning; he is 
convinced intuitively. Let him feel that you have 
right, by feeling that you are right. But when that 
child begins to say, "why?" know that fallen reason is 
urging it to further exercise of faith and love ; there- 
fore answer it in the language given you by God, for 
if that child's soul be not thus met with admonition, 
godly nurture, and instruction, it will speedily obtain de- 
lusive answers for itself in false desire and fearful cre- 
dency. Good education is the training of the mind to 
good feeling — the communication of intelligence in love 
and faithfulness — in short, religion : but bad education 
is whatever induces a mind to distrust others rather 



248 love. 

than itself, and sets it selfishly at work to find satisfac- 
tion in knowledge without love, in facts without faith, 
in dependence on the senses for sufficiency rather than 
on God. 

Love, itself may abuse power. Howard was, as 
a philanthropist, a blessing to the world, but, as a 
father, however affectionate, he seems to have been 
unwise; a mistaken sense of duty caused him to 
pierce his own heart. He thought it his duty to insist 
on obedience merely on the authority of parental pow- 
er, instead of enforcing it by the attractiveness of father- 
ly feeling and consistency. Natural faith and affection 
are not blind, but well able to distinguish their proper 
objects. He taught his child, while still an infant, not 
to cry, and never in all its childhood permitted it to 
have what it demanded with tears ! God forbid that 
our Father in heaven should thus treat us. He ex- 
pects us to be in earnest. But, said Howard, the gov- 
ernment of a being that can not reason a bout the fit- 
ness of things should be only coercive and in fear. He 
overlooked the discernment that is keener than reason; 
he forgot that the heart has to be educated as well as 
the head, and that it is ruled aright only as long as 
love is visible in power. A child that must always gov- 
ern its feelings, from fear of others, will soon be a 
hypocrite and a tyrant. When the fetters upon it are 
removed, the soul will rush into selfish extravagance, 
and, perhaps, perish; like a bird from a cage, unfit to 
use its wings, and aiming only at pleasure, while in* 
capable of providing for its own wants. Thus How- 
ard's son was in infancy coerced, without fondness; 
in youth, commanded to be moral; in manhood, be- 
came debauched, and then mad. 

If a man's heart be governed by love for God, he may 
trust to its naturalness for the proper expression of 
that love in all his relationships. It is, however, very 
easy to say that we love God, and yet deceive ourselves. 



love. 249 

We can not love Him without loving holiness and 
hating evil. But we know neither what is evil nor 
what is holy, until taught of God to estimate the love- 
liness of his own character. We must see the beauty 
of holiness, before we can desire to be holy; and this 
we learn from the fact, that every doctrine that is divine 
begins and ends in love. If God were not Love, how 
should we have thought that was His name? An evil 
spirit never suggested that word. God must have re- 
vealed Himself ere we could have believed it. There 
is no Almighty Love among the worshipers of evil 
spirits — they tremble in their idolatries, and know no- 
thing of a power to cast out fear. Nor should we have 
found a way out of torment, had not God himself come 
to dwell in humanity among us. To know the true 
God and eternal life, is to know Him whom God has 
sent. If, then, we would govern rightly either the 
passions of others or our own, we must evince the 
divine life as a power utterly opposed to all evil, and 
bound to resist it eveu unto death, and make ourselves 
a sacrifice rather than resign that which alone is really 
life. 

The law of love is the law of liberty. Supposing we 
were at liberty to choose our own pleasures, should we 
decide on self-denial, as the beginning of bliss? If the 
care of oneself is virtue, as we are taught by some 
who treat largely of our moral constitution on physical 
principles, then, of course, self-denial is foolishness. 
But mere self is not the main motive any where in 
nature. Love is stronger than death ; and love is the 
law of Heaven, written in the hearts of all creatures. 
From the lowest impulse of natural instinct up to that 
of the highest angel, the sense of others absorbs that 
of self; and all happiness is found in that intensity 
of feeling that blends self-consciousness so completely 
with the sense of some beloved being, as to render 
them but one. Even among the lower animals, the 



250 LOVE. 

love of offspring is mightier than that of self-preserva- 
tion. That is a beautiful but yet common kind of fact 
which Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, relates. — " We 
had one very bad winter, so that our sheep grew lean, 
and disease carried off many. Often have I seen these 
poor victims, when fallen down to rise no more, and 
even when unable to lift their heads from the ground, 
holding up the leg, to invite the starving lamb to the 
miserable pittance that the udder could still supply." 
How many a human parent endures the bitterness of 
this world with heroic front for the sake of his little 
ones, but for whom he would prefer to hide himself 
and die ! Thus, by love, our Maker provides for our 
spiritual progress, amidst the trials of our affections, 
and if we know Him, enables us, in their very agony, 
to approach most nearly to Himself, in the apprehen- 
sion of His charity who heads the army of faithful 
sufferers, and will ultimately lead them, triumphant 
over self, to that home of rest where excellence shall 
no more need denial, but where intelligence, effort, 
and experience, shall completely, and forever, har- 
monize with love. u Endure, as seeing Him who is 
invisible." Tribulation is the channel of blessing. Love 
mingles its virtue with the troubled waters, and a weak 
man, who enters them with faith, grows strong in soul 
as he struggles with the wave that would otherwise 
overwhelm him. He breasts it, and rises above it, and 
returns to the work of life no longer impotent. But 
it is He who asked the man if he would be healed, and 
who touched him, and said, " Go — sin no more," that 
must be still the healer. It is only from a conscious- 
ness of what He is to us, as the Saviour, that we can 
fulfill the duty of bearing trouble, and walk in the dig- 
nity of a citizen of heaven. < k Endure as seeing Him 
who is invisible." Where is the man with a heart that 
Would call that woman unhappy who should lose her 
own life in rescuing her child from the flames ? or 



LOVE. 251 

who is there among men, who would love him who 
could never do a good action without calculating how it 
might be accomplished without hurting himself? The 
infidel system of morals knows nothing of love in its 
Divio e forms, and its abettors would have scoffed, as 
those like them did, at the Man of Sorrows, who bowed 
His head as He hung upon the cross; they could not 
have seen what faith learns from love — that the Son of 
God suffered Himself to be immolated merely to de- 
monstrate what love can do to win hearts and to teach 
men to understand the nature of the mercy they would 
trust. 

We can not, if we would, live only to ourselves ; 
heaven and our hearts forbid it; the eternal future of 
weal or woe forbids it ; the revelation of God in pro- 
vidence and grace forbids it; and Christianity is, in its 
spirit and its deeds, a total denial of this self. But the 
law of Heaven is not incongruous ; it enjoins love, and 
so orders causes and consequences, that the obedience 
of love enlarges the power of loving, and with it the 
capacity of obeying and enjoying. And there is no 
substitute for love : when this is wanting, its opposite 
is present — those who obey not love, submit to fear, 
and fear is the most cruel passion in the world; since 
it will commit any crime to calm itself, if only for a 
moment, although the more wickedness it commits, 
the more is its torment. Now this must be the gov- 
ernment of infidelity ; and what are its modes of action 
and rewards, the outrages of the reign of terror may, 
without comment, suffice to show. Where a right- 
eous God is not acknowledged, there the very love 
that is divine must form a hell, and rule in fire. 

Love can not be partial, but, nevertheless, it must be 
according to faith. 3Iost persons will own that the 
law of love is a beautiful law for the government of 
spirits in general ; but, unfortunately, the majority of 
persons condemn themselves as often as they make this 



252 love. 

acknowledgment. They well approve of being treated 
according to the rule of a considerate and charitable 
regard for all their own interests, but some blinding 
conceit, or selfish deception, hinders them from acting 
on this rule with regard to others. " Love thy neigh- 
bor as thyself," is mentally applied as a Divine direc- 
tion for the regeneration of society; but we are apt to 
forget that the renewal of our own minds in the spirit 
of this law is the only proof that we feel its value. It 
is possible to make ourselves so completely our own 
objects, as really to look at nothing else with any 
degree of love, and then to render it the business of 
life to be adulated and admired. The passion for 
human approbation scruples at nothing that may serve 
to win applause; and men can imitate demons from a 
desire to be idolized. But the true hero is not ambi- 
tious of distinction. He wishes, indeed, to rise to the 
height of excellence, but he aims not at being alone in 
heaven ; he loves others as himself, and believing in 
God as the source of blessings to the innumerable 
company that walk alike in light, desires all the families 
of mankind to be as the children of one Father. His 
idea of love is the love of Him who would have all 
men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the 
truth ; of Him who laid down his life for his friends, 
that they might be made perfect in love, and be with 
Him in glory. The love that can not bear all contra- 
diction and injustice, in order to remove the curse 
upon prejudice, is a love that can not stand the test; 
it lives not in the faith of God, and therefore will 
endeavor to excuse itself from obeying the command 
that requires the manifestation of love to others in 
spite of their hatred. Love is due to none, if not to 
all — and if to all, it is not because we have any espe- 
cial right in it, but as the common gift of God, like the 
sunshine that falls equally upon the just and the unjust, 
although none rightly enjoy it but those who feel that 



love. 253 

light is love, for without faith in the Giver we find no 
spirit of goodness in the gift. 

Love makes the character of a man, and the selfish 
are the miserly, who, in their eagerness to possess, 
lose the power to enjoy, and set themselves at their 
right value, as worth only so much in pounds sterling, 
to be used by their heirs and undertakers. 

Unhappy man — most wretched of all disconsolate 
lovers — in love with thyself! Most unworthy is the 
object of thy affection ; but, alas ! it will incessantly 
obtrude itself, and utterly shut out even the capacity 
of enjoying a pleasant thought. How can he rest 
upon his heart's love, who is forced to show himself 
so much attention as to exclude all other objects, as 
if God had not another creature worthy of his care ? 

Even Narcissus saw something to admire: though 
but the reflection of himself, it returned his smile ; 
but he who thinks only of himself, sees nothing that 
can permanently please him. The world of light is 
a blank creation to such a soul, and compared with it 
an oyster at the bottom of the sea is a princely being, 
since it voluntarily opens its shell that life may play 
about its heart; and when the sunshine reaches down 
to its home it feels that it is alive with its neighbors ; 
for even the creeping things in the great deep have 
senses, and rejoice in the use of them. 

The Maker of man designed him to be unhappy, 
except when his heart is engaged in making others 
happy. This is the only way in which man can imi- 
tate God ; and though man can create nothing for 
himself, yet his proper satisfaction is not otherwise 
than divine when rightly using divine gifts. We are 
to behold that God's works are very good, and we are 
so to feel the goodness that they manifest, as livingly 
to express the benevolence of their Maker. He gives 
us senses to put us in relation to all outward sources 
of delight: He gives us reason and affection, that we 



254 love. 

may think and love ; He gives us will and muscle that 
we may hope and act. Thus we are called on to at- 
tend to every thing rather than ourselves ; and not to 
live in the enlargement of our souls as unequaled and 
unmatched but by minds in communion with each 
other, with God and His universe, is to frustrate the 
purpose of our being. We are to be happy, but only 
in living activity and in sympathy with happiness. 
We are to produce joy, in order fully to perceive it. 
We are to look for smiles, and so act that those about 
us may always meet us with a cheerful face and a con- 
fiding heart. 

Love judges righteously. If we judge our friends 
before we judge ourselves, we condemn them for the 
evils that are in us, and are thus in danger of feeling 
hatred, and entering into the fire unquenchable. That 
charity begins at home and ends there, which does not 
act with a clear conscience. If you love those only that 
love you, what thanks have you? That is the love of 
men, who think they can find nothing in themselves 
to be hated and avoided. Christian charity is of a 
holier order; it repents of the evil at home first, and 
then, finding the pleasantness of the light that shines 
into the soul from heaven, sets about awakening other 
hearts to a sense of their own evils, only that they may 
reap at length the joys of goodness. God being on the 
side of this love, it fears the power of no adversary, 
aud feels indeed, that enmity is destroyed so far as 
concerns itself. This Love has, in fact, no enemies, 
except in the will of those who oppose it ; but, as they 
can do it no harm, and it can do them great good, it 
embraces them with prayer, and would teach them 
the secrets of a new nature. As charity thinks no 
evil, so it speaks none. It meets even Satan himself 
with becoming dignity, and would not ignorantly abuse 
a power it understands not, but says, 4i The Lord re 
. buke thee." And how did the Lord rebuke the Prince 



love. 255 

of darkness ? Not by accusing him, but by meekly 
telling him the truth, and so defying him. To ac- 
cuse and to calumniate js the fallen spirits' own busi- 
ness, and they are his advocates who imitate his do- 
ings. 

How great must be our proneness to evil, and how 
vast our demand upon long-suffering mercy, since, 
though good and evil have been equally before us all 
our lives, yet, in spite of our convictions, the evil most 
readily cleaves to our mind. The ideas that most 
prevalently haunt our souls, in solitude or in society, 
the readiest associations of our memories, either in pro- 
fane places or in sacred, are still of a kind that should 
make us ashamed of ourselves. But we scarcely 
blush so deeply as we ought, even though they pre- 
sent themselves and come in the way when we would 
bow in spirit before our Maker. Indeed, so little do 
we faithfully realize the perversity of our affections, 
that our very prayers, whether in godly words before 
our eyes, or in God's own language on our lips, are 
offered rather as carnal wishes, to be gratified for our 
pleasure ; than as the real wants of a guilty spirit 
needing to be purified. O thou holy searcher of 
hearts, cleanse thou our thoughts by the inspiration 
of thy Spirit, that our love and our desires may be fit 
for heaven. 

Love is antagonist to self-will. Self-will in man 
is self-love, and this is always murderous, because it is 
lawless : seeking only the gratification of impulses as 
the only reason for action, it necessarily becomes en- 
raged at any will opposed to its own. It aims only at 
destroying what it dislikes. It can not submit, because 
it can not trust nor give credit to any authority that 
would regulate its violence. It can not tolerate any 
order but its own, and that is seen only as a desire for 
the destruction of every impediment to the reign of 
its own growing tyranny. It may exhaust its means 



256 love. 

of action, but itself is still the same, and it can neither 
be expended nor be made to repent. This self-will 
slew Abel and slew Christ, merely because they were 
willing to obey, and, as sons of God, worshiped and 
served in a way appointed by Divine wisdom rather 
than human will. It converts natural attachment 
itself into occasion for its worst exercise. Thus, 
when James and John knew Jesus only in the light 
of a natural affection, as a good man in his earthly ap- 
pearance, they would have called down fire from 
heaven to consume those Samaritans that would not 
receive him. Now God in Christ is constantly oppos- 
ing this spirit. Those, therefore, who think they 
worship him aright, and yet with a pious self-will set 
up their own authority, deceive themselves with a no- 
tion that they are serving the Holy One and the Just, 
while they are only pleasing themselves. They know 
not their own spirit, nor that the spirit of truth is the 
spirit of love, or they would not vilify their brethren 
and devote them to perdition, because they walk not 
with them. The only cure for this Satanic disposi- 
tion for exclusiveness and vengeance is to know God 
as Love, and submit to Him. Thus we shall find the 
highest motives and the highest bliss in renouncing 
the natural impulsive self, and partaking of the very 
selfhood of the Divine nature, be wholly governed by 
Jehovah's spirit, with a consciousness that his w T ill is 
holiness itself and happiness. 

The innumerable conflicting elements of human 
passion are ordinarily set in motion by this unsanctified 
self-will, and therefore we see throughout history and 
on every hand, lawlessness at work to obtain forbidden 
ends, and struggling with a burning zeal to reduce so- 
ciety to clanships under opposing heads, by systemat- 
izing religion itself on the principles of hell. The 
remedy is plain — obey God. But we may pray and 
sing praises in the name of obedience, while yet ador- 



love. 257 

ing only our own blind wills. The spirit of Heaven 
must be in us before we shall really obey, and this 
spirit does not so much command us as constrain us to 
act with the charity that never fails, because it absorbs 
our hearts in devotedness to our Maker and Redeem 
er, and therefore induces us in truth to love our neigh- 
bors as well as ourselves, because they equally with 
us are loved of our Father in heaven. Thus the only 
sufficient motive for self-denial is that which our Sav- 
iour felt — a benevolence that knows no will but the 
love of God. 

Christianity proposes an excellent way for the set- 
tlement of all disputes; it sets up love as superior to 
all other authority, and as the only interpreter of God's 
mind. If any teaching tend to encourage an over- 
bearing temper, or the assumption of a right to dictate 
to consciences, except by preaching the charity of 
God's word, it evidently comes not from above. Who- 
ever endeavors to secure advantage to himself, or his 
party, to the prejudice of others, is not moved by the 
spirit of Heaven, and the only proof we can afford of 
our believing the truth must be seen in our practice of 
charity. This is the only spirit that is infallible : it 
works with the hand of the Alraighty, and trusts to the 
decisions of the All-wise, and presents God himself as 
the salvation of all who submit to Him in faith, hope, 
and love. The church must fail to persuade the 
world until it is visibly one in the light of its love, for 
it is not the temple of God unless His glory manifest- 
ly dwell in it. The word of life is the lamp of light. 
It is utterly vain and vexatious for men to dispute 
about the significance of this or that doctrine, creed, 
form, or ceremony, until they feel the love that think- 
eth no evil; for until then God is not with them, and 
therefore their discussions must end, as they began, in 
darkness, distrust, and ill-will. 

Love is the mainspring of all action and enjoyment; 
17 



258 love. 

but its might is revealed only by its trials, and that is a 
mockery of love that is not faithful unto death, because 
all things perishable must terminate in that. But it is in 
the nature of love to live on with growing strength to 
the end, and it brings a man up to the very entrance 
of Hades, with his whole soul transformed into the 
likeness of his prominent love, as if to intimate that 
he must thus appear before the Judge of spirits ; and 
according to the character stamped by his affections 
upon his life, be appointed to his everlasting place 
and fellowships. We become like what we love — the 
will is the man himself, as regards desire, action, 
thought; and to know the state of a man's will is 
therefore to know his spiritual standing as God sees it. 
In order, then, to become godlike, we must love God. 
But how can a creature of such conflicting passions, 
and with a mind debased by attachment to the mean- 
est objects, be capable of turning his attention from the 
attractions of forms and colors and voices, which he 
calls beautiful, to contemplate invisible perfections ? 
How can we cease to seek satisfaction through the 
senses, that we may possess it in our souls? This 
change implies the presence of a transforming spirit; 
it is equivalent to a new creation ; every faculty must 
change its place as well as its employment. It is ef- 
fected by a word, but it is a word that not only creates 
light but also the power of seeing, and is itself dwel- 
ling in all that it produces. God speaks and it is done ; 
the man who lived in the world of sensation begins to 
breathe in the world of spirit; the heart that was agi- 
tated by earthly emotions is awakened to the con- 
sciousness of heavenly affections ; the mind that deem- 
ed the play of shadows and the impressions of the 
elements on his nerves to be truth, now exercises a 
discernment that reaches far beyond the region of the 
senses, and is impressed by objects worthy of an e^ sv- 
nal love. The soul of the true believer Mkc the »• at 






love. 259 

deep, may be agitated on its surface by passing winds, 
and be partially darkened by clouds and eclipse, but 
While earth influences its currents, it is still penetrated 
throughout by the attractions of heaven, and the light 
of other worlds is always on its bosom. 

By faith man sees God. He recognizes Divinity in 
all that the universe utters of excellence, and he loves 
with a true adoration, because he feels that the united 
attributes of his Maker constitute the one perfection 
of beauty. He no longer perceives Jehovah in divided 
properties, but in his personal majesty and goodness ; 
not as an abstraction, but in relationships, and that not 
simply to existence as a whole, but to himself as a 
member of His family; and feeling the gentleness of 
His gracious hand, the new man responds to the touch 
of his Maker, and, like a son, from the heart exclaims, 
not only •• My Lord and my God," but also •' Thou art 
our Father. * ? 

But we can not thus love our Creator without sympa- 
thy with Him. We need not merely to believe in the 
Almighty, but also in Immanuel. God must be with 
us. "We can not sympathize with an unrevealed Deity, 
and he can not be revealed to us but in our own nature, 
since there is no other way in which we can have 
communion. Love must be humanized in order to be 
known by us, since the principles of Divine and human 
existence in fellowship of spirit, knowledge, love, and 
truth, require us to see exactly, and in demonstration, 
what obedience signifies — even the fulfilling of the law 
to its most perfect illustration, as the expression of 
Divine love to reasonable and yet sinful creatures. 
Hence the beauty of God is seen in Jesus, since no other 
being ever gave us an idea of perfect love, or a love 
without a motive beyond itself. Heroes have been 
worshiped because of their exploits, but there is not 
one among the host of the great doers that a little 
child could love for his deeds. Earthly heroes are all 



260 LOVE. 

heluieted, and the nodding plume bears terror in it to 
every simple heart; but the majesty on the brow of 
the Lord Jesus was that meekness that would invite 
a little child to smile in his face, and cause all heaven 
to bow down in love, while smilingly He whispered of 
happy things to the trustful being in His arms. He 
took them in His arms, and blessed them. That is 
the place of blessing. May we be as His children — 
believing, sustaining, blessed. 

O Lord Jesus, all miracles are performed in thy 
name! Impart thy spirit to us, that we may so use 
thy words as to feel ourselves passed from death, and 
able to call the dead to behold thy life, and live like 
thee and with thee, in the glory everlasting of thy love. 
" The true morality is love of thee." It requires that 
all the demands of the soul should be satisfied from thy 
fullness. Complete salvation is what we need — a well- 
being that can not be disturbed. But this can only be 
obtained by union with Him who is one with God ; 
and this is possible only because our individual welfare 
is one with the glory of the Redeemer. In Him we 
have sympathy with Heaven, because love is infinite; 
in Him we learn the significance of duty to the Deity, 
because He has fulfilled all righteousness, and shown 
us how obedience is love. Thus we gain the highest 
good, since thus the peace of God is brought by love to 
our consciences. This delight of the soul in the law 
of God is opposed to all disorderly and mean desires, 
and, in fact, the warfare of the Christian consists in 
maintaining a struggle against all inferior motives, from 
the transcendent excellence of this love. Hence it is 
manifest, that as man possesses no sufficient motive for 
self-denial without a Divine communication, so it is 
impossible for a man to be truly moral without being 
religious. He can not feel bound to consider the hap- 
piness of his fellow-beings unless he feel bound to obey 
God, and he can not faithfully acknowledge his obliga- 






LOVE. 261 

tion to God until be knows somewhat of the love of 
God. There is an especial adaptation of the necessi- 
ties of intelligent creatures to the spiritual bountiful- 
ness of the Creator, and we are capable of attaining tt> 
His love, because He has made provision in the new 
covenant to meet every demand upon His mercy, 
without denying that of justice, since, in conferring his 
favor as obtained through Christ, He imparts his own 
spirit. Therefore, we can not ask too freely from the 
giver of all good gifts, since in proportion as we ask we 
receive, and in proportion as we receive we are made 
like God, and therefore meet for the inheritance of the 
kingdom where love reigns, in all its manifestations, as 
God revealed in man. 

Human love can not reach content until it rests iu 
God. We shall surely find, that the affection and the 
friendship that lead us not to the fountain of life, will 
deceive and afflict us, and leave us amidst the shadows 
of death, seeking rest and finding none. The soul of 
man must, in all its attachments, tend either to heaven 
or to hell. The spirit within us is either holy or pro- 
fane, and either opens the heart to admit the reproving 
and rectifying light, or wraps it up in darkness to brood 
over sin. Every character is known by its affinities, 
and reason is distinguished by its relationship to the 
Divinity. Hence rational love is always religious ; it 
realizes a sacramental meaning in all its engagements; 
it feels full of eternal life. 

As Adam received the companion of his nature and 
being from the hand of Jehovah, as an everlasting evi- 
dence of Divine love accommodated to himself, and as 
that love constituted man and woman one in all the 
purposes of existence, so all real love unites those who 
feel it as heirs together of the same life. Any thing in 
the name of love beneath this is mere passion, either 
instinctive or Satanic. 

Since all true love is so far Divine in its nature as 



262 love. 

always to conduct the soul to God, for safety and satis- 
faction both for its object and for itself, whatever 
has the opposite effect, has in it the spirit of idolatry 
There are three kinds of passiou especially idolatrous. 
which yet are designated loves — the love of wealth, 
avarice ; the love of praise, ambition ; the love of 
bodily pleasure, voluptuousness. They all set up some- 
thing to be worshiped, not to symbolize, but to con- 
ceal the claims of God. The most dangerous is the 
most fascinating, — that incontinent love of mere beauty 
of person and pleasure of sense, which, when suffered 
to possess the soul, holds it in captivity, like the demon 
which the disciples of our Lord could not cast out; it 
needs au Omnipotent interference, as well as fasting 
and prayer. This unloving spirit of false pleasure, 
impiously absorbing the soul in the flesh, is the type 
and the reality of all God-forsaking. Every thing that 
has true love in it is lawful because love can neither 
tempt nor yield to temptation without denying itself, 
since it seeks pleasure only by being blessed in bless- 
ing, and therefore can not deviate from the path of 
obedience, faith, and honor. A man can not love an 
object that he would injure, for it is of the nature of 
love to constrain to any self-sacrifice for the sake of its 
object; it always speaks and acts after this manner: 
"What ye shall say unto me, I will give. Ask me 
never so much dowry and gift, and I will give accord- 
ing as ye shall say unto me ; but give me the damsel to 
wife." 

The worst of all mockeries is a marriage without 
love, a yoking together, but not a union, bondage 
without a bond, a multiplication of all the burthens of 
life for both parties, without a mutual life-interest, and 
like the offering of a whole family to false gods, whose 
demands are never satisfied, because, whatever the sac- 
rifice, there is still no atonement. Too many matches 
are made in a confusion — they have no faith in their 






love. 263 

composition, and therefore an abundance of sin. There 
may be sincerity enough in them, but too often it is 
sincere selfishness; a sense of God's favor has nothing 
to do with it: the compact is a merely civil affair, as 
if the Lord of life had not instituted nuptials to evince 
His own love and dominion, His own union in power 
with submissive humanity, so that command and obedi- 
ence should be the expression of one spirit, and that 
spirit, love. The chief concern of this life is least 
understood — the science of union is not studied, the 
principles of peace and of happiness are lost in com- 
mercial relations, or left to the discernment of minds 
blinded by passion. In this artificial state of society, 
nature attempts sometimes to vindicate her own maj- 
esty, but, being thwarted in every direction, the heart 
usually becomes attached to inappropriate objects, and 
either cherishes its own maudlin romance, or resigns 
itself to some ignoble decision, that plants a thorn in 
every step of life. Those who do not think that their 
hearts need any instruction from their Maker, will, of 
course, be indifferent about the doctrines of revelation 
on the subject of love, but they will learn, perhaps too 
late, that in this, as in all other matters that belong to 
the soul, there is no security but in following Divine 
guidance. Where the spirit of Jesus is, there is 
liberty, and there only, and he who chooses to act 
without submission to the mind of Christ is so far not 
a Christian. The ethics and true philosophy of every 
form of love are found in the New Testament, aud it 
will be quite enough for all practical purposes if young 
men and women will study and apply the philosophy 
there taught, for then they will find no danger in each 
other's society. They will there see what sobriety 
means, and if, under the laws of nature and of provi- 
dence, they should be drawn into closer association, it 
will be in all respects a sacred adaptation for the help 
of each other's faith, in mutual coufessions of faults, 



2f>4 LOVE. 

and in mutual encouragements to trust their God, as 
the source of hope, faith, love, and joy. Far be it 
from us to deny that almost every heart has something 
of sincerity in its love. This would be to assert that 
mankind are more generally governed by the intellect 
than the heart. But the love that is most sincere is 
almost always the most impolitic, and therefore society 
protests against, condemns, and punishes it, or else 
some passion of a more hardening and ambitious char- 
acter is in the mean time roused up in the bosom and 
banishes the true love from the thoughts, or forces it 
to give way to the prouder tyranny. There are but 
few who have not felt the potent and transforming 
touch of a real, generous, unselfish love, if not in their 
own hearts, yet in appeals of other hearts to theirs. 
It is this apprehension of love, as a thoroughly unselfish 
spirit, that lights up the conscience, and whispers, with 
a mighty voice, commanding us to confess that love had 
rightful claims upon us, which have been awfully re- 
sisted, and must hereafter be vindicated even in our 
woe. It is love that inspires hope, and makes salvation 
possible. It is love that redeems the lost, and pre- 
serves the blessed ; it is love that brings a man to 
judgment and condemns him ; it is love that calls true 
hearts to inherit the kingdom of the Father ; it is love 
that stamps perdition upon faithless spirits. 

All who have felt the purity and power of unselfish 
affection, with an acknowledgment that to be just or to 
be happy they should obey it, must feel self-con- 
demned in the remembrance of those motives that 
have induced them to act in defiance of its dictates. 
It was probably thus that the mind of Napoleon, when, 
under disease and weakness, he approached the verge 
of the spiritual world, was brought to reflection. Then 
the one whom he had most injured came to him in 
vision, as if to reprove in order to encourage him, by 
intimating the undying nature of love, and to call up, in 



love. 2G5 

the fatten and desponding man, a consciousness of the 
wrong he had wrought, and to prove that the best 
hopes of the heart are associated with quiet, relying, 
and domestic affections, and that life is worth nothing 
without a love that endures all things, and survives 
death. 

'• It was on the 26th of April, after a calm night, he 
said to Montholon, with extraordinary emotion, • I have 
seen my good Josephine, but she would not embrace 
me ; she disappeared at the moment when I was 
about to take her in my arms: she was seated there: 
it seemed to me that I had seen her yesterday evening; 
she is not changed — still the same, full of devotion to 
me ; she told me that we were about to see each 
other again, never more to part. She assured me of 
that. Did you see her ?' Whether it were a feverish 
dream or a real and actual vision, its purpose was 
equally experienced. It impressed its moral on the 
few melancholy hours which now lay between him 
and the grave. '' — History of the Captivity of Napoleon 
at St. Helena, by General Count Montholon. 

What is it to have resisted the claims of natural 
affection and the appeals of a true love but to have 
resisted the Almighty 1 He speaks to us by ell that 
would invite us to the active fellowships of benevolence 
and peace, and it must be the felt contrariety of will to 
the love that constitutes the brightness and bliss of 
heaven, which kindles the flames unquenchable, and 
gives its life and venom to the gnawing worm that can 
not die. But the suffering of guilt is not the final 
object of reason and of faith — it is deliverance. The 
lessons of love ire those of adversity dealing in no 
falsehoods, but promising true happiness by right 
means, and assuring us that God afflicts not tyran- 
nically, but only for our good. Love must be tried, 
and purified even as by tire : it alone is worth the 
crucible. But why, throughout this checkered world, 



266 love. 

do the inoffensive and undefended become the prey of 
the rapacious ? Why is death the origin and end of 
life ? Human philosophy would say it signifies nothing 
more than that a greater number should enjoy them- 
selves through successive destruction. But O Thou 
Maker of man, is that thy teaching? Is it for this 
that the whoje creation groaneth together until now ? 
There is a restitution, a liberty, a redemption, for the 
glorious coming of which the creature waits in hope 
that can not be confounded, since it is the expectation 
of the sons of God, in whose hearts Omnipotence 
diffuses a sense of His own love. 

But yet, O my God, why dost thou permit the inno- 
cent to suffer? Why was the sweet child whom thou 
didst give me to love as my life, why was its smiling 
beauty made hideous with agony before my eyes, and 
then lulled to sleep with new loveliness in the arms 
of death ? Love must live by faith. That was the 
vision of my own sin, reigning unto death ; I must 
look beyond. 

" Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani" God hath for- 
saken his only begotten Son ; the holy child of the 
Highest bows his head upon the cross, and it is finish- 
ed. But why does it behove Jehovah to bring sons 
unto glory, by making Jesus perfect through suffer- 
ings ? It was because he was holy that he did suffer, 
and that for us. We bless thee, O manifest God, that 
we are not left to infer from our fears how we must 
be brought to thee, but to learn from thy love ; and 
though reason can not create a single star to gleam up- 
on our midnight, yet thou hast given us the faith that 
operates with love, by which we penetrate the gloom, 
and look into the infinite light beyond our prison- 
house. We are therefore entitled thus to challenge 
the Almighty, and say, » Though thou slay me, yet will 
I trust thee" for by the abundance of thy love, right- 
eousness reigns in life everlasting, since through the 






love. 267 

risen Saviour we enter into the glory of his own res 
urrection, and find our own perfect humanity one 
with God's. 

Love is a motive for immortal hope and advancement. 
It may be said that our natural affections present us 
with sufficient motives for moral conduct, since they 
can not prosper without reciprocal restraints. If we 
love an object, we shall undoubtedly seek to admiuster 
to the happiness of that object. Pure love always 
blesses where it can, and it is never disappointed as 
long as it is met by a corresponding heart ; yet misery 
most assuredly comes upon it either because it is not 
duly appreciated, or because it witnesses pain and sor- 
row where it would fain speak peace and joy. And 
then, supposing it to have ripened into its best maturity 
between the most friendly hearts, disease and death 
must arrest it there, so that earthly love itself termin- 
ates in darkness, to be felt the more palpably in pro- 
portion to the strength and the intensity and devoted- 
ness of that love. Sad ultimatum of that which alone 
promised happiness, and alone could feel it! If in this 
life only we have hope, so far from inducing us to cul- 
tivate the family and friendly charities up to their high- 
est refinement, it would seem that the less we knew 
of them the better, since despair must be their end. 
Surely this deadly view of love can not be of that order 
which casts out fear, for torment is the only fruit 
which it prepares for death to lay in the dust, without 
a living seed within it to spring into new life. 

The stoic philosophy is becoming for mortals. To 
refine the feelings by lessons of benevolence is but a 
cruel mode of education, if the young spirits, thus train- 
ed to diffuse their charity in smiles and gentle sympa- 
thies, are only at last to encounter pangs and then to 
perish. If we have suffered our intellects to be thus 
schooled by the doctrines of skepticism, it has been 
against the teachings of our hearts, for they are wiser. 



268 love. 

We feel that our affections are comfortless without 
hope — but what hope ? Hope that dies, if it dare to 
look forward a few years ? That, indeed, is godless, 
and does not deserve the name of hope. It is desola- 
tion and despair, when it comes out from its creeping 
and crawling state. When it gets its wings, it finds 
no food, and perishes. We do not, we dare not, sit 
down deliberately, with all the brightness of the world 
about us, and teach our children that death is to be the 
end of hope and of love. They know better, and will 
not believe us in our reasoning against reason. Human 
nature wants motive to take it beyond the grave, or it 
must grovel, and grub, and sink into brutality, and hid- 
eous, hateful, hating fleshliness. It can not go on- 
ward, it can not climb, it can not look toward heaven, 
if the glory from afar do not draw it upward. It must 
bound itself like an earthw r orm in the clay — it needs 
no eyes — the light is useless, but to stir it into life, 
which serves no purpose except to gather grossness, 
that it may nourish the soil in which it crawls. Human 
nature nowhere decently submits to this deadly phi- 
losophy, and wherever kindly affections have room to 
flourish, they assert their origin, and point to immortal- 
ity. Even the laws that man imposes upon society 
found their force upon divine authority and order; and 
they would be without sanction, if without acknowl- 
edgment of God. And those closed hearts, that try 
to accommodate their affections without religion, must 
also do so without reason, without hope, and without 
morality ; for whatever their feelings may be, their in- 
stincts alone guide them, and the love of a lioness to 
her cubs is quite as amiable as that of a human mother, 
if she press not her baby to her bosom with the con- 
sciousness that God warms her soul with parental fond- 
ness, as an intimation that He loves forever. She can 
not breathe the proper breath of love, as she looks 
upon the cheek of her dependent child, unless she 



love. 269 

sigh a prayer for eternal blessings on it. Thus she 
comes in faith to Heaven, and finds in God that quiet 
for her heart which He inspires with affection, only to 
instruct her how largely to trust Him with demands 
upon His providence and favor. 

Love is not an accident of matter — a casualty in 
creation — a phosphorescence from a dead fungus; 
there is meaning and motive in it, devised in the 
Eternal Mind from which it flows, to indicate to every 
soul that feels it truly that God is not far from any one 
of us. It is a ray from the source that never sets — a 
line of light connecting us with the Everlasting, among 
which we may live in correspondence with the Father 
in the assurance that we never shall be forsaken here 
or hereafter. It is to this human love and its necessi- 
ties that the divine love of Christianity addresses itself 
For this the Lord Jesus was a child of woman ; and 
the maternal love is imperfect, peaceless, almost pro- 
fitless and destitute, without the fulfillment and satis- 
faction of its wants — without the spiritual and celestial 
spirit that appeals to it and completes it, by expanding 
it into full life by submission to God, as its everlasting 
source and sustentation. All love must end where it be- 
gan — with impulse, if it be not principled in the soul; 
for without faith it does not realize its relationship to 
the Creative Being. But thus conscious of its true ex- 
istence in Deity being sanctified, it becomes immortal. 
It longs to be eternal, and believes that all its proper 
objects will be provided, purified, and preserved for it 
in heaven. 

Lore is the basis of repentance and forgiveness. — The 
normal influences of both natural and spiritual existence 
are to no other end but to evince the benignity of 
God. But the will of man is not forced into conform- 
ity to this universal law, but on rational conviction, 
otherwise it would be impossible he should be con- 
scious of willing. Yet man feels, whenever he reasons, 



270 LOVE. 

that if he do not thus rightly use the means with which 
he is endowed, he is positively opposed in his inten- 
tions and actions, to the constitution of the universe, 
and therefore, to the Almighty, whom he must meet 
only as a constant antagonist,unless, by the entrance of 
moral light into his understanding, a change of mind be 
effected, and his motives and desires take the direction 
which God has appointed. This can occur from no 
other cause than a persuasive knowledge and feeling 
of the Divine character, as entirely worthy of the high- 
est affection and confidence of an intelligent creature. 
Thus reason becomes religion. It is felt to be iniquit- 
ous and malevolent willingly to do any thing inconsist- 
ent with the kindness and charity of the Godhead, or 
irrespective of the majesty and government of Good- 
ness. But a man thus convinced in his conscience of 
having set himself against the purposes of his Creator, 
and knowing, from this intuitive admonisher, that the 
will of God must be utterly resistent and destructive to 
every thing that is not conformable to good-will, per- 
ceives no escape from the righteousness of the Divine 
decision against himself; for love itself would be re- 
solved into an empty sentiment unless it were one with 
justice. Thus the man self-condemned must breathe 
in terror, until he discovers the way of forgiveness, 
without derogating from the glory of His diadem 
whose decree against a perverse will is unalterable. 
This he can not find, until he perceives that the faith- 
fulness and righteousness of Jehovah are required to 
absolve the truly penitent, and to purify him from guilt, 
because true penitence itself can arise only from God's 
own spirit in the man. In fact, the doctrines of that 
wondrous book, the Bible, so much quoted, and so little 
appreciated, are the only doctrines among men which 
elucidate the enormity of moral evil and at the same 
time illustrate the manner of its removal; for no other 
truths than those therein revealed, tend in any measure 



LOVE. 271 

to demonstrate the necessity of repentance, and a new 
mode of spirit and of life. 

Since without love we feel no sorrow for having 
offended, so we cordially seek forgiveness only from 
those in whose love we have reason to believe. It is 
the apprehension of the forgiving heart of true love 
that brings tears into our eyes, on remembering our 
sins against it. Could Judas have met the eye of 
Jesus, and felt His love as Peter did, instead of going 
to his own place, through despair and suicide in the 
field of blood, his soul would have been drawn more 
closely to his Lord, while in some secret place he 
wept bitterly, because the sense of his own treachery 
would have deepened in proportion as he felt the 
greatness of his dying Saviour's love. 

The most unhappy are the most amiable, if they but 
know the worth of love. Not those who spitefully 
make themselves wretched ; but those who find them- 
selves out of place, undone, and in despair, and asham- 
ed to look up, because of self-reproach, and because 
no kindly eye speaks to them. These are they that 
the Son of God prefers to converse with alone, and to 
touch with His burning words of Jove, until their hearts 
leap up in the light of heaven. Such are fit to feel 
the divinity of compassion, and respond with a life to 
the smile of God seen in the Saviour's face, whei? JJq 
says, "Be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee ■ 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE LOVE OF ACTION A>'D POWER. 

The infant no sooner moves its limbs, and feels that 
they are moved at its will, than it begins to enjoy 
itself in the use of its own power, for power is evinced 
only in action, and every action is a certainty — an ad- 
vance in positive knowledge. The infantine motive is 
the motive of all. It is the love of power, or rather 
the pleasure of self-consciousness in the use of means, 
by which we obtain outward evidence of our own in- 
ward life and of the reality of things, in relation to our- 
selves. Every voluntary bodily act is an action of 
mind, in which there are both attention and intention, 
and, therefore, the very essence of all that constitutes 
actual enjoyment. This love of action in the use of 
power is shown in a great variety of manners, but in 
all its manifestations it appears only either as a desire 
to influence others or to employ ourselves. Every 
new exertion of power being so far an extension of our 
faculties, or a larger realization of our own existence, 
it is no more w T onderful that we love to exercise this 
power than that we should wish to use our eyes, and 
help them with the telescope to look further into the 
heavens. All advancement is due to this love of power. 
When rightly exercised, it serves to prove that God 
does not deceive us with appearances, but that by His 
very nature there is truth in all he has made. What- 
ever a man contrives to accomplish by new means, or 
to a greater extent, brings his own spirit more into vital 
connection with the moving universe, and more out of 
the region of death. He who first traveled, without 
fear, sixty miles an hour on a railway, was conscious 



THE LOVE OF ACTION AND POWER. 273 

of a new kind of life ; but the man who invented the 
steam locomotive that drew the train, containing him- 
self as the mind of the moving mass, was the man who 
most enjoyed the love of power and of action. 

All the delights of discovery arise from our admira- 
tion of power, as evinced in the divine disposal of the 
elements for given purposes ; and it is in the nature 
of the mind, according to its prominent disposition, al- 
ways to aim at making a practical use of knowledge, 
by rendering science the minister of pleasure, by pre- 
senting new combinations to the senses, and by ena- 
bling man to extend and establish his dominion over 
the earth. Were Napoleon now in his former place, 
he would summon the lightning to his aid, cause it to 
open passages through the mountains, and transport 
his armies on its wings, and the world would admire, 
while trembling at the power that converts savants into 
slaves. 

So great is our sympathy with the bare exercise of 
power, that the ambition of tyrants and conquerors 
inspires a feeling of sublimity, when, with command- 
ing skill, they wield the energies of millions, and so 
enchant the nations as to make them submit to their 
caprices. And indeed, it is wonderful that he who led 
so many thousands to inglorious destruction in Russia, 
should, at a word, call armies to the slaughter at Wa- 
terloo. 

Those who do not habitually contemplate the demon- 
strations of Omnipotence, as seen in creation and in 
providence, are always ready to be captivated by dar- 
ing spirits ; and those who do not addict themselves to 
the quiet activities of science and of social commerce, 
are ever the first to talk of glory, and, under the pre- 
tense of defending their own rights, to trample on 
those of mankind. In short, those who do not wor- 
ship God, will worship themselves, in the form of some 
ostensible hero ; and, whether it be such a one as Na- 
18 



274 THE LOVE OF ACTION AND POWER. 

poleon, or even "that spirit unfortunate" that reigns 
in hell, they care not, so that he is active and ingen- 
ious enough to keep their pride astir, while employing 
them for his own purposes. 

Some men work with their own means, others take 
advantage of those of their neighbors. Society is 
maintained by this love of power, but in one class of 
minds it takes the direction of activity, and in another 
the desire for possession ; the co-operation of these 
constitutes commerce, and introduces those arts of in- 
dustry which supply the means of luxury and comfort. 
But as it is more blessed to give than to receive, so it 
is happier to be active than passive. It is better to be 
busy in devising and employing the means of turning 
nature to advantage, though seemingly reluctant, than 
to be supplied like a plant without personal effort. 
All the free creatures of earth, air, aud sea, are con- 
strained to exert themselves for the supply of their 
own wants, and the feeling of necessity which causes 
exertion is the means of all their happiness. Thus 
it is also with man ; and therefore, if he who is pro- 
vided with a daily sufficiency without toil, turn not 
his mind to the consideration of his spiritual progress 
and usefulness, he must be running riot in iniquity, 
and studying how he may please himself in the indul- 
gence of whatever taste may happen to predominate, 
since it is impossible for the soul to cease from action 
as long as the nerves will obey it. Activity without 
faith, or a feeling of duty, is the turmoil of hell, and 
to seek the power of being idle is to court the com- 
pany of demons, with their torments. The mind will, 
while in the body, become subject to the body, unless 
struggling on in the pursuit of truth, it holds dominion 
over appetite. Unholy, unsocial, and brutal pleasure 
will debase all man's faculties into bodily passions, if, 
in the leisure of exemption from labor, his heart and 
mind are not busied about those nobler objects which 






THE LOVE OF ACTION AXD POWER. .275 

the worlds of nature and of providence offer so freely 
to our souls. It is not surprising, therefore, that when 
men of sober and industrious habits succeed in acquir- 
ing the means of retirement, and withdraw, it is too 
often neither with ease nor with dignity; but in fact, 
they leave all their pleasure in town, with their busi- 
ness, and, not being mentally provided for. they sigh, 
amid their paradise, for the loss of that cordial with 
which Mammon sweetened toil ; and, finding nothing 
at hand in which they are fit to be employed, become 
either hypochondriacal, dreamy, or dangerous in their 
miserly irritations. 

The love of power takes as many forms as there are 
minds, since every mind possesses something in some 
measure peculiar to itself, either in its motive or its 
means. But the aims of men are generally directed 
according to their social feelings ; for whether wo 
seek knowledge, eloquence, or wealth, we usually ac- 
quire and employ them only that we may attain a sta- 
tion in society, or an influence among our friends or 
in our families, that will enable us to enjoy an exten- 
sion of our individual endowments, by fellowship with 
others, or by inducing them to act in keeping with 
our own wishes. 

There are, however, misers of all complexions, 
whose only business is to wrap up their acquirements, 
and hide them away, as the Indians do their choice 
gods; and well may they conceal them, for they "are 
but paltry idols at the best. The desire of possession 
of any kind, like that of gold, merely as money, is a 
monomania of the hoarding disposition, which gets its 
own punishment, if not its cure, by depriving itself of 
the means of enjoyment in the very act of increasing 
the store. 

Thought must precede, accompany, and follow ex- 
periment, or industry will be wasted, and we shall 
make no advance in true observation. Many enjoy 



276 THE LOVE OP ACTION AND POWER. 

their senses for a lifetime, and die without being the 
wiser for their experience. 

Want is the parent of industry and research ; but 
the wants of man arise partly from his bodily demands, 
and partly from those of his mind. Reason has de- 
sires of its own, which lead to action. The appre- 
hension of a possible advantage induces an effort for 
its attainment in proportion as we feel its desirable- 
ness; but we judge between the degree of difficulty 
in an enterprise and the benefit to be derived from it; 
and prudence decides whether it would be better to 
undertake the task, with the means we possess, or 
forego the advantage. We say — Is the object worth 
the labor? Some kinds of labor bring only sorrow. 
Industry expended on that which helps not to satisfy 
some proper desire of the mind, is only productive of 
greater discontent, since the intention is always to 
happiness, and this intention must of course be disap- 
pointed as often as our aims are not directed to the 
attainment of right ends. It is, therefore, essential to 
the prosperity of the mind, that a man should first of 
all determine that what he seeks is compatible with 
the Divine appointment, as regards the means by 
which man shall really obtain good. The inquiry — 
Is it lawful? should precede every undertaking. 
Conscience will reply correctly, or at least suggest a 
test for self-determination, by recalling to the mind 
the royal law — Do as thou wouldst be done unto. 
This applies to all affairs — handicraft, or head-work, 
for both are worthless if the heart be not in them to 
good purpose. Now, whatever will contribute to the 
benefit of society is a good employment. Industry, 
simply considered, is a benefit in itself, and idleness a 
curse, because he who has no duty to engage him is a 
hindrance to others. Of course, those who can not 
work — as from disease, for instance — may yet be 
blessings, by giving others occasions to work for the 









THE LOVE OF ACTION AND POWER. 277 

best wages, the reward of active Christian charity. 
But those who will not toil for themselves and their 
own house are not worthy even of their food. 

There was business on earth for man before sin 
entered it. The spirit that animated man, before the 
breath of Satan blighted the blooming Paradise, was 
the spirit of industry, that went cheerfully and right- 
heartedly to work, and wisely directed all the apti- 
tudes of nature to the noblest ends, by engaging every 
gift of God, so as to develop the growing fund of good- 
ness contained within it. The happiness of every 
creature consists in its appropriate action, and if we 
would feel that God, in mercy to man, uttered a mal- 
ediction on the ground, we must learn that the way to 
the highest, holiest, most sabbatical rest, is through 
patience, and toil, and death, and burial in the dust, 
for thus we secure that fullness of earthly blessing 
which is poured upon the soul like a flood of light, and 
animates to duteous activity, not as a mere contented 
obedience, but as a feeling that God himself has called 
a man to walk in the path he occupies, as the way that 
shall end in the unutterable joys of heaven. 

The first employment of man, even in Paradise, 
was to increase the comforts of earth to every creat- 
ure in it; therefore no one can be wrong who, with 
a right motive, sets about improving the facilities, or 
increasing the productiveness, of agriculture and com- 
merce. He is obeying God, he is helping to supply 
the natural demands of human kind, and promoting 
the establishment of universal peace. He is blessed. 
And the man who searches after truth, and diffuses it 
when he has found it, is also industrious in the right 
way, and he also is blessed in his labor. Whatever 
calls to action in a right cause opposes discontent, by 
exciting a hope that has the property of happiness, in 
itself, because it engages the soul in a pursuit that 
ends only in finding some higher and happier employ- 



278 THE LOVE OF ACTION AND POWER. 

ment. The man duteously busy is heavenly in hope, 
in action, in habit, and in end, because he is using 
divine means for divine purposes, and for the advance- 
ment of himself in the good of his neighbors. 

There are no good works without faith. — We must be- 
lieve in the reward and the Rewarder, before we can 
possess a right spirit for labor ; since, otherwise, our em- 
ployment will amount to no more than the drudgery of 
seeking vain amusement, or of slaving on in greater deg- 
radation than a muzzled ox under the sharp stimulus of 
the goad. But patience, too, has perfect w T ork, and it 
is blessed, indeed, for its life is faith ; therefore plod on, 
weary workers, and your souls shall yet be free. 

Youth is especially the period of activity, and if the 
habit of mental economy be not then formed, it can 
rarely be afterward acquired. Without the active 
vitality of spring, we look in vain for the blooming 
vigor of summer and the rich fruits of autumn. How 
weighty, then, the responsibility of youth, and how 
urgent the duty of every individual who possesses 
influence on the young, to cause all means in their 
power to bear upon the formation of the characters of 
those to whom society must look for new impulses and 
power. Young men, stir up your strength ; your 
country looks to you, not merely for the maintenance 
of its greatness, but for the fuller development of its 
majesty, as the mistress of the world. Think, that 
you may act, and act worthily of your high vocation, as 
the transmitters and improvers of all that is noble in 
institution or intention. Remember, the means are in 
your hands of changing the aspect of the whole world, 
and causing it to reflect the glory of heaven in its face. 
The machinery by which states and all their societies 
are to move onward is to be kept at work, and gov- 
erned by your management and strength. It is not 
placed in your power for yourselves, nor by yourselves : 
you serve God, or you are called to serve. If you 



THE LOVE OF ACTION AND POWER. 279 

refuse, you serve God's everlasting antagonist, and you 
know his wages. The Almighty has brought you into 
being, and made you men, that the business of human- 
ity may be yours, as it is His. He demands your 
hearts and your hands, to co-operate with omnipotence 
in the service of the Son of man and of God, that you 
may inherit together the glovy that is coming. The 
world must be set in motion, both mechanically and re- 
ligiously : therefore He gives you the steam-engine 
and the Bible, with which to regenerate mankind. 
Truth and engineering, science natural and science 
spiritual, are the only civilizers and reformers; the one 
for the body, the other for the soul. If you would 
succeed, you must use both, with a consciousness that 
all power is God's. He bids you deposit the lightning, 
that it may conduct your thoughts, as rapidly as they 
arise, from land to land, and He requires you to take 
the light from heaven into your hearts, and speak it 
every where. Thus the wide earth shall be as if 
condensed into a chrysolite, with radiance streaming 
through it, and all its inhabitants shall be united in soul 
by divine knowledge, and feel that their homes are 
hanging upon heaven by bands of glory. All nature 
shall be spiritualized to the apprehension of mankind, 
and they shall see, like angels, that the meaning of all 
things is the mind of God. 

Ail God's universe is in motion under His hand — 
move with it. Let the harmony of His purpose be 
yours. Let power be ruled by love; let the activities 
of that animating spirit govern you, for if it do not, all 
the elements that are so inscrutably active about you 
and within you will war against you, and whirl you 
into outer darkness. But your minds being regulated 
by obedience to the Divine "Word, you will find all 
things working together for your good, and you will, 
in fact, be obedient to the \ery thought that, being 
spoken, brought light into existence, and thence all 



THE LOVE OF ACTION AND POWEB. 

things ; and thus you will act at last as if constituted 
like it. by being really, and in spirit, united with the 
"Word, that was God, and dwelt among us, and whose 
glory we beheld as full of grace and broth. Minds not 
thus submissive to Heaven become more miserable in 
proportion to their efforts. They may strive to be 
idle, but they will only be wretched. 

The indolent disposition is not punishable by British 
laws, as it was by those of Athens and Rome, yet it 
surely meets the misery it merits, and, like every 
51 indulgence in iniquity, bears within itself the 
elements of torment. Neglect of means will substan- 
tiate the final condemnation — " Inasmuch as ye did it 
not"' will be the damning decision. Not to serve Him, 
before whose judgment-seat all must stand, is to serve 
the enemy of God and man. It is not a mere waste of 
spirit and of power, but it is the employment of gifts 
against the Giver. 

Would it not be strange, if in countries professing to 
deem God's word the only moral directory, that there 
should be less of public devoted ness than among people 
who did not like to retain God in their knowledge ? 
The youthful Hannibal dedicated himself to vengeauce 
for his country's sake: but you, Christian young men, 
devote yourselves to the good of man for God's sake. 
You gird yourselves to battle, not against earthly foes 
merely, but against spiritual principalities and powers, 
that the enemy may be driven from the home of your 
neighbor, as well as from your own heart. You fight 
under the banner of Heaven ; the sun is your shield ; 
you conquer with light, which is both your defense 
and your weapon. Go on. from conquering to conquer. 
The Christian, thus armed. 

" Can hold no parley with unmanly fears — 
Where duty bids, he confidently steers ; 
Faces a thousand dangers, at her call, 
And, frosting in hie Be : surmounts them all." 



THE LOVE OF ACTION AND POWER. 28 1 

The triumph ^vill be glorious, if only you are sure 
that you are battling in a right cause and with the right 
weapons. 

Young men who believe in Jesus. " I write unto you, 
because ye are strong, and have overcome the Wricked 
One." Consult the living oracles in all your move- 
ments. So surely as Providence endows you with 
vigor and social impetuosity and power, so surely are 
you responsible for the use of those means by which 
society might be blessed by you. The energy and life- 
blood of society are in your veins, and if the body 
politic be stagnant or disordered, it is from some defect 
in you — some unwillingness to work as God would 
have you work. Whether a feverish delirium distract, 
or a perverted energy convulse the hearts of law- 
makers and laborers . whether the land languish like a 
swamp, or thrive like a well cultivated field, will mainly 
depend upon the manner in which you think and act. 
Therefore look into history for wise examples, and 
into your own relations to God and man for motives, 
for means. Your time is embryo eternity. Whether 
your activity shall be blessed or baneful, rests with 
your will — on your moral intelligence and conscience. 
What do yon mean to do? Trust not your own judg- 
ments; but let the experience of age and staid reflec- 
tion regulate your energies, and then advancement will 
be safe as well as certain. A glowing disposition, a 
sunny enthusiasm, a hearty devotedness, will only 
aggravate ruin and disappointment, without a good 
cause and a sound discretion. Therefore, let youth 
never think itself safe and in the right way, until it has 
at least felt enough doubt concerning its own power of 
discernment to induce inquiry, and the right estimate 
of reverend and tried men. There is no escape from 
the consequences of misconduct, and their condemna- 
tion is the deepest who abuse advantages in the pre- 
sumption of self-confidence. The Lofty One inhabiting 



282 THE LOVE OF ACTION AND POWER. 

eternity blesses none but the humble, and blesses 
them because they are in earnest in seeking and work 
ing out their salvation. They receive power from on 
high, and consume not the bounties of Heaven upon 
their lusts in the pride of a lying life. 

Since man fell, toil has been a necessity, and there- 
fore so far a sorrow. The same amount of exertion 
which, when voluntary, is a pleasure, under compul- 
sion becomes a pain. Yet, by setting the thoughts 
on the end and object of labor, rather than on the thing 
itself, we find the necessary exertion to be the direct 
means of tranquilizing both mind and body, while, at 
the same time, it increases and accomplishes our 
hopes. Thus, having fulfilled our daily toil in the act 
of meditating on the sunshine of to-morrow, we peace- 
fully close our eyes on to-day, without a doubt or a 
dream, the darkness passes over us, and we awake in 
light with new life in our limbs. By making labor an 
exchange for commodities, God has taken aw T ay much 
of the curse from the ground. He might have en- 
slaved us all without redemption, but that He is love. 
We might have been driven as convicts, as we are, in 
chains to toil, without wages or reward, but that when 
he enjoined labor, He also promised rest, and giving 
us six days for neighborly co-operation in our common 
weal, demands that we all meet Him together on the 
seventh. He has made the Sabbath for man, to teach 
him that the soul that comes to God ceases from his 
labors, as to all trust in them; and that, though his 
works follow him, it is into rest ; for the business of a 
worshiping spirit is performed without effort, and is 
but as the activity of life infused into the body by the 
breath of the Creator. Wherever this spirit of free- 
dom and of power, from the consciousness that God 
inspires us, is not felt, there is bondage, and the de- 
basement of the drudge, even in attempts at worship. 
The Lord of the Sabbath is the Lord of life, and of 



THE LOVE OF ACTION AND POWER. 283 

liberty ; and wherever bis authority is denied or not 
known, there the curse of shivery is felt, and the 
whole creation groans. No people can be blessed 
without keeping a holy day — a day sacred to God ; for 
the animal nature will tyrannize and suffer, unless 
both the soul and the body enjoy their sabbaths. All 
the functions of a man's life are ordered with respect 
to weekly periods, and the habit of observing a seventh 
day, as an entire respite from toil, favors the regular 
distribution of vital power; and the repose of a spirit 
retiring from worldly employment to the inner sanc- 
tuary, is like drawing a fresh supply from the foun- 
tain of health and salvation. It will be vain for phi- 
lanthropists to endeavor to teach gorgeous barbarians 
and tyrannical savages their own value and the value 
of their fellow men, at any thing more than a market- 
able estimate, unless they first demonstrate the fact, 
that the Almighty has put a price upon each soul, and 
values it as that of His own Son. Let men know and 
feel the meaning of the Lord's day, as the promise and 
pledge of the glorious rest of regeneration into spirit- 
ual activity and life, to which all are called to aspire, 
and then, and not till then, will humanity be develop- 
ed as the spirit of true industry and neighborhood and 

joy- 
But work on earth is the business of man. Each 
in his sphere has something to do, and happy is he 
who does it with all his heart, as unto God, and not 
to man. The only care essential to a right industry 
is to see that one is doing his duty. The encourage- 
ment to exertion is to feel that we are not working 
under a task-master, to make bricks without straw, but 
that each of us is at liberty, or should be, to do the 
best with the ability that God gives us, under the con- 
viction that we shall not be condemned for deficiency, 
unless we willingly and indolently abuse the abun- 
dance of means bestowed on us. There is a ministry 



284 THE LOVE OF ACTION AND POWER. 

for every man ; we must all serve ; and all that is nec- 
essary to render our service acceptable to God, and 
really serviceable to man, is a right spirit in our place. 
Any one who has the power of acting, or, I may say, 
even of willing, has the power of acting, speaking, or 
praying, in such a way as shall do some good to some- 
body. Every one exerts an influence by his very 
thoughts. By right thinking, we shall use every op- 
portunity of so working as necessarily to do the best, 
under the circumstances, for the good of society and 
ourselves. Therefore let us say with Augustine, In- 
siste, anime meus, et adtende fortiter. 

Industry is essentially social. No man can improve 
either himself or his neighbor without neighborly help, 
and to better the world is to set the world to work to- 
gether. Every useful invention has been carried out 
and perfected by the co-operation of many minds, or 
by the successive applications of varied genius to the 
same objects, age after age. The mechanic must aid 
the philosopher, or he must stand still in his demon- 
strations ; and the philosopher must aid the mechanic, 
or he will work and work without wisdom. The as- 
tronomer needs his telescope, and the chemist his 
materials and apparatus. The sciences hang on the 
arts, and the arts on the sciences. But without the 
philosophy from Heaven, neither art nor science would 
look off the earth, and industry would die a natural 
death and rise no more, for religion alone is the living 
spirit of human sociality and power. 

1 If any strength we have, it is to ill ; 
But all the good is God's, both power and also will." 

Spenser's Fairy Queen. 

Even those who can do nothing but receive help, can 
receive it in such a manner as to bless the helper, if 
only by causing him to feel that it is indeed more bless- 
ed to give than to receive. A soul sensible of realities 






THE LOVE OF ACTION AND POWER. 285 

always sets itself and others to work to some purpose. 
There is always hope in true activity; the will works 
in the brain and muscles of a man who works because 
he wills and knows what he is about, and why he is 
busy. But what kind of willingness that is which ani- 
mates a man under the lash, the coward conscience 
of the slave-driver, when God speaks to him silently 
and alone in the stillness of death, can best say. 

Most persons have an activity of impulse, a sort of 
childish playfulness, in wasting energy. Such per- 
sons please themselves and benefit others only by ac- 
cident, and because they can not help it. There is no 
steadiness without an aim, and unless the aim, be a 
worthy one, the spirit does not fully nerve the arm. 
All evil disposition is impulsive, and therefore fitful, 
foolish, wayward. It may be obstinate, but it can not 
be truly persevering, since it does not look to the end, 
but merely goes on pleasing itself to the best of its 
ability, as suitable objects may happen to offer excite- 
ment and inducement. It can not be hopeful in a ra- 
tional sense, because no man can discover a reason for 
hoping that ultimate success, in a satisfactory sense, 
can crown a bad action, much less a habit of such action. 
Hence it follows that healthy and hopeful activity is 
impossible, without an approvable motive ; in short, 
there is no blessing for a bad will. A good and 
honest intention is blessed already, and works with 
increasing blessing, since what is consistent with 
the real welfare of one's neighbor is in keeping with 
one's own safety, because it is according to the law 
of God which is the law of blessing to all who will 
obey it. Good intentions, then, set men properly to 
work with what means they possess. Therefore be 
strong, O man of poverty. Believe in the Giver of 
strength and opportunity, and you shall feel the seeds 
of an immortal vigor growing in your veins. See that 
you pray and live, desiring exactly w T hat the All-wise 



286 THE LOVE OF ACTION AND POWER. 

knows to be best, and then you will bear your burden 
with a light heart, and sometimes look up into heaven 
so joyously as to forget that the earth must be dug in- 
to, even to make a grave. It is not real good intent 
but hypocrisy that paves the pit of darkness, while 
sincere, love-born purpose lays the golden pavement 
of the city of God. 

Every individual should feel that he has some busi- 
ness that must be blessed, if he use his means for the 
best, since the God of providence calls for exertion 
only because He grants the ability and intends a happy 
result, which must arrive. We should therefore act 
as integral members of a whole company, where God 
is overseer, and then we shall find also a time for rest 
as well as for labor, and the soul will indeed enjoy a 
perpetual sabbath of its own, in the peace of that faith 
which animates it with Divine energy, and with hopes 
that terminate only in the eternal happiness to which 
they point. 



CHAPTER XV. 

CONSCIENCE. 

However diversified may be the estimates which 
men in general form of virtue, and however widely 
they deviate in their conduct from the line they deem 
right, they are always so far self-complacent, as very 
adroitly to supply excuses to satisfy their own con- 
sciences. They measure themselves one by another 
and see so many faults in their neighbors, that they 
feel entitled to be lenient to their own. This kind of 
conscience is uncharitableness, and belongs to those 
who are most scrupulous in demanding license for 
themselves, while most punctiliously rigid in refusing 
all liberty to others. Nevertheless, even these men 
of most unconscionable consciences are open to some 
sort of conviction : for when the law of God is mani- 
fested to their understandings, they at once acknowl- 
edge its goodness, justness, holiness, and thus they 
bear witness against themselves and in favor of Divine 
purity ; but then they are very apt to infer that this 
holy, just, and good law has nothing to do in regu- 
lating the duties of their own lives, not because it ought 
not, but rather, perhaps, because they see not how it 
can. They can not endure their own legal condemna- 
tion, and therefore imagine they are to be saved by a 
faith that does not work by rule, but trusts in a righte- 
ousness that it will not adopt, forgetful that though 
man is saved by God, yet it is not in spite of himself. 
Happy indeed is it to have a soul freed from terror by 
a vision of grace reigning through righteousness unto 



288 CONSCIENCE. 

life ; but this is not seen in its heavenly manner until 
we love the Father, because he first loved us. Then, 
indeed, a sublimer motive penetrates the spirit, like 
the angels' strain stirring the hearts of the shepherds on 
the plains at Bethlehem — " Glory to God in the high- 
est, peace on earth, good will to man." But this glory, 
peace, and love are most visible to man when the Law- 
giver illustrates the beauty of holiness, in human sub- 
mission to the Divine will, for then we see how the 
agony that breaks the heart is triumphantly endured by 
love, and then the bowing down of the head, in obedi- 
ence unto death, shows us how the God-life of humanity 
enlightens Hades, and enters into Heaven. Conscience 
lies dark and dormant until the light of the Divine char- 
acter shines into man's understanding. We can not be 
conscientious until we believe in Love. The testimo- 
ny of moral perception is never clearly elicited from 
our hearts until reason is illuminated by a manifesta- 
tion of truth as the will of God. Until then we only 
speculate on ethics, like the heathen who knew not 
God, and therefore could not see the ground of mor- 
al excellence. As Dr. Thaer pertinently says : — 
" The ancient philosophers have much disputed wheth- 
er there be one virtue only, or many ; one vice, or 
many. It depends, as it appears to me, on what our 
notion of virtue or vice is ; for him who strives after a 
steady perfection in soul, there is but one virtue. He 
who, on the contrary, looks upon virtue, in relation to 
civil society, and calls that virtue which advances pub* 
lie and private happiness, and that vice which disturbs 
it, he may have many virtues and many vices. I be- 
lieve that these opinions are not merely speculative, 
but have a real influence on practice. He who adopts 
the first notion, not in word merely, but embraces it 
as warmly and sincerely as I did — he, if he sinks in 
one respect, sinks in all. Christ says, * Whosoever 
shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, 






CONSCIENCE. 2S9 

he is guilty of all.' I feel, Lord, thy truth !"* A con- 
sciousness of sin is an experimental and personal 
matter. 

We may perceive that many things are really good 
or really evil, but we do not discern truth in its nature 
until we perceive that every truth involves the idea of 
perfect righteousness, and implies the entire intoler- 
ance of all injustice by the Author of all truth, and that 
therefore every evil disposition must be essentially 
hateful to any mind that is in accordance with perfect 
love. Truth and love are united, as the necessary ex- 
pression of the divinity to all intelligences, and they 
that separate them, in their thoughts and actions, have 
an evil and unhappy state of spirit and a growing tend- 
ency to darkness and doubt. If they follow truth with- 
out love, in the divine sense, it is also without moral 
feeling, and therefore merely to gratify some proud or 
debased passion ; for if they possess any kind of love, 
without the love of truth it can only be either sensual- 
ly or diabolically. When they believe they must also 
tremble; siuce, in either case, the revelation of Deity 
must be surprising, hateful, and condemning to them. 
In the light their consciences may and must awake, 
but only like a wounded man that has slumbered 
dreamily with opiates, to be roused to the realities of 
agony. When truth, as a ray of the Sun of Right- 
eousness, shines into the secret depths of a man's soul, 
he must acknowledge the Holy One. Then he ceases 
to speculate about sin ; he feels it, not merely as an 
evil, because it is apt to produce inconvenient effects, 
but as essentially iniquitous and horrible, because 
against the will and ordinances of pure love. The 
heart of Him who lamented over Jerusalem, and was 
pierced on Calvary, is the place in which to see sin in 
its hatefulness ; since there we see how a man that 

*From a biographical notice of Albert Thaer, in the Moral 
Aspects of Medical Life, by Dr. Mackness. 

19 



290 CONSCIENCE. 

could not sin must suffer, in sympathizing both with 
God, as the Father, and with man, as the prodigal. 

Many writers have learnedly and elaborately dis- 
coursed to prove that it is the natural right and office 
of conscience to condemn the wrong-doer. If it be 
meant, as it appears to be, that conscience thus acts, 
although no divine enlightenment reach it extraneously 
— then, surely, more is asserted than either experience 
or revelation will warrant. Faith comes by hearing, and 
hearing by the Word of God. It is the office of the 
Holy Spirit to convince of sin, of righteousness, and of 
judgment to come. How could a man like St. Paul 
have persecuted the early Christians with so ready a 
spirit, and think all the while that he was doing God 
good service, if his natural conscience had been a suf- 
ficient guide and governance for his conduct, in the 
difficult affair of choosing to resign all his old prejudices, 
while obstinately bent upon proving his zeal, by im- 
prisoning and stoning those who preached against 
them ? " Father, forgive them, for they know not what 
they do," was the Saviour's dying prayer. The evil 
conscience of unbelief is blind as well as impious. The 
law of God must be felt as God's charity in the soul 
before it can conscientiously do its duty; and we may 
as well look for a world of beauty without the sun, as 
for any right discernment or moral excellence in man, 
without the light which flows into his mind from re- 
vealed truth and the revealing Spirit. Whatever be 
man's discernment, he is not in a state prepared to do 
unto others as he would be done by, until the law of 
love enters into all his desires and actions like a new 
life ; for, without this how can he avoid thrusting his 
own selfish claims in the way of his neighbors, instead 
of making his neighbors' interest one with his own ? 

It is true that certain heathens eloquently discourse 
concerning the vera lex and the recta ratio, naturd con- 
gruens, diffusa in omnes, semjpiterna et immortalibus ; but 



CONSCIENCE. 291 

alas ! he who wrote these words said, also, that he was 
entirely faultless. Thus, amidst their prevalent super- 
stitions, and their worshipings of deified lusts, how ob- 
scure were their notions of the Divine law. Their 
conscience never condemned their creed, nor does any 
man's. The lex vera of their minds was not divine, 
and did not reach the thoughts and intents of the 
heart. If it condemned the man who willfully injured 
his neighbor, or broke the laws of his country, retalia- 
tion or retribution could expiate the offense, for guilt 
was not understood to be, as it is, a pollution cleaving 
to the spirit, to be removed only by that repentance 
which accompanies an entire change in the state of 
the will and conscience. There was no forgiveness 
in their law, because there was no charity ; and if 
their fabled gods were ever to be appeased, it was by 
cruelty and vengeance. 

The atonement made by love attracting men to God, 
by subduing their hearts, was God's own method, 
which men untaught could never have discovered ; and 
not knowing and feeling this, their consciences could 
not recognize either the law of life or of liberty. Even 
the slight glimmering of the recta ratio, which the 
heathen recognized as from Heaven, was probably 
conveyed to them through tradition from a period 
when the only God was worshiped, or else they de- 
rived it directly from the Hebrew bards and prophets, 
for the chosen people were a testimony to all nations. 
But truth did not suit man's disposition ; he did not 
like to retain God in his knowledge, and eternal life 
had no abidence in him — nor has it ever, but by the 
inhabiting of the Holy Spirit imparted to all believers 
in the redemption. Hence it is that, among the igno- 
rant and faithless, the law of God has no felt authority, 
and charity is at best but a family virtue. A law that 
could reg.ard every human being as equally entitled to 
be loved with a man's own self, is altogether beyond 



292 CONSCIENCE. 

their apprenension ; so that the words, just and good 
are terms expressive of unknown qualities, or only 
narrowly applied to the very partial relationships of 
kindred and of clans. 

A society of philanthropists endeavored to encourage 
deeds of charity and virtue among the Pawnee In- 
dians. They found a young man of that tribe who 
had daringly signalized himself by rescuing a young 
woman from an awful death : while she was surround- 
ed by her intended executioners, he rushed into the 
midst of them and bearing her away to a spot where he 
had placed a fleet horse, he escaped with her before 
they had time to recover from their surprise. It might 
be supposed that a sense of that injustice with which a 
number of warriors were about to expiate some small 
offense in their helpless victim, moved him to this no- 
ble deed ; but when the philanthropists presented this 
young warrior with a silver medal for his reward, he 
exclaimed, I did not know that I did right! In short, 
his conscience had only condemned him for interfering 
with the cruel usages of his savage countrymen, and 
the only excuse he had to offer for his daring deed, 
was the sufficiently manly one, that he wanted a 
wife. 

So far is it indeed from being true, that conscience 
holds supremacy over the soul, that the facility with 
which we naturally excuse our own acts is a demon- 
stration of the need for a rectifying and enlightening 
power from above, in order that man should perceive 
his duty, and fulfill it. Without this, men yield to 
whatever passion may happen to predominate, and ex- 
hibit no more conception of moral rectitude, in the 
workings of their affections, than any gregarious tribe 
of animals. Witness the degradation of woman, where 
the Christian spirit does not assert her dignity; wit- 
ness the universal subjection of the weak to the will- 
ful, where God does not speak. Without the recti- 



CONSCIENCE. 290 

tifying spirit of truth, men always seek their own 
pleasure, and their love is as lawless as their hate. 
Their ideas of righteousness extend no farther than 
to expediency and convenience, and they interpret 
even the word of God by the principles of the market, 
counting that loss which another gains, and that fair 
profit which aggrandizes selfishness, by taking advant- 
age of ignorance and trust. 

In order to study to have a conscience without of- 
fense, we must know the Divine will, and willingly 
obey it. 

Those without the written law are a law unto them- 
selves, and they are judged according to the light that 
is in them. Did the Hindoos deem Suttee sinful ? No. 
Neither their gods nor their consciences taught, them 
any thing of the real nature of sin. They would have 
thought it sin not to burn the widow with the dead 
body of her husband, because such gods as they knew 
were likely enough to be pleased with such sacrifices. 
Thus the understanding of every nation and every 
man is darkened by some deluding demon, so that con- 
science can not see. until the true light shines upon 
the soul, by giving it the knowledge of the true God in 
Jesus Christ, who is the Judge of all. In Him alone 
the authority of conscience is asserted and vindicated, 
and no spirit but His can clear the earth or the heart 
from that darkness in which cruelty delights to dwell, 
and cause faith, hope and charity to take its place. 
The condemnation, however, comes with the true 
light that flows from heaven, and awakens the con- 
science while convincing the understanding: and if 
men will not bring their deeds to be reproved, it is be- 
cause they prefer darkness to light, and would rather 
perish than part from the sins they love. 

Before we can approve what is right, there must 
be the entrance of that light which brings with it the 
feeling of Divine purity. The cultivation of con- 



294 CONSCIENCE. 

science, even in a Christian requires something more 
than intellectual apprehension. A cordial faith in 
God's goodness must actuate the life, and produce in 
the conduct a reflex manifestation of the love which 
is revealed in the believer's mind ; for as warmth is 
mingled with radiance in the vivifying sunbeam, so the 
light of a true and heavenly faith never enters a human 
soul divinely to quicken it, without a corresponding 
love. 

Christianity is not a system of ethical philosophy, 
merely to make us acquainted with the names of the 
virtues, but a system of means by which we are 
brought to God, and caused to resemble Him. The 
truths embodied in Christian doctrines minister their 
own spirit to those who obey them in love, for this is 
obedience to God, and therefore the union of the hu- 
man with the Divine will. The reception and enjoy- 
ment of Christian truth must, therefore, prove the 
value of the soul, by expanding its affections, desires, 
and capacity, in a manner coincident with the beauty, 
sublimity, and vastness of the objects thus presented to 
the mind, as fit for its love. Truth supplies the spirit 
with true hopes, because, being obeyed, it renders the 
conscience void of offense. It promises only what it 
must fulfill, since we thus enter on the enjoyment of 
our eternal patrimony, as heirs of the Almighty. 

Plato truly says, that the conscience is the god with- 
in the soul. But then a holy state of conscience can 
spring only from faith in a holy God, and the soul's pos- 
session of a false god must be a false faith, a false con- 
science, and a life of delusions. With a right apprehen- 
sion of the Divine character, as revealed in the sacred 
Scriptures, we shall always be able to discriminate be- 
tween moral good and evil, and shall not be deceived 
by facts, as unbelievers constantly are, since in reality 
they reject the master or key-truths, simply because 
these truths do not please them, and they subject them- 



CONSCIENCE. 295 

selves, by choice, to those errors which confirm their 
condemnation. 

They excuse themselves from serving God, even 
though they can not deny his right to their obedience. 
But if they were utterly ignorant of God and His de- 
mands, we should not be surprised at their having no 
conscience in respect to God, and therefore no sense 
of having sinned against Him. They believe in some 
other than the true God — some undefined power, some 
energia, some mathematical principle, some omnipo- 
tent agency without personality, against which there 
can be no such thing as sinning. A Copper Indian, 
who worships a personal god, though wrapped up in 
his mystery-bag, has some check upon his conscience ; 
but a man who is neither a heathen nor a Christian 
worships nothing, and has a conscience that can not be 
cultivated, but on the principle of pleasing himself, as 
his own supreme. 

There is no duty where there is no law, and no true 
law where there is no love, for no being has authority 
to control the actions of another, but for his advantage. 
Resistance to mere despotism is not disobedience, ex- 
cept in case some authority, superior to that which 
would tyrannize over us, commands submission to the 
tyranny for the sake of the superior authority. But, 
even then, we recognize in that superior authority a 
right to command, only because some ultimate good is 
to result to ourselves and to others. Hence Christians 
are content to suffer wrong rather than resist the ap- 
pointed power, so long as, by so doing, they are exer- 
cising faith upon the good-will of Him who thus com- 
mands them to submit. Yet if the appointed power 
assume a right to compel our submission in a manner 
that clearly contravenes the superior law, we are, in 
fact, called upon to refuse obedience. Thus, when the 
Apostles were commanded to cease speaking in the 



296 CONSCIENCE. 

name of Jesus, they preferred to suffer the conse- 
quences of resisting this command, because they had 
received distinct instructions from Heaven to preach in 
that name : — " Whether we ought to obey men rather 
than God., judge ye." They were conscientious, they 
acted from a sense of duty, and felt where the author- 
ity resided, and on what that authority rested — even 
the benevolence of God. 

Conscience, then, is the principle which perceives 
duty, and prompts to its fulfillment. Duty itself is al- 
together dependent on relationship. Thus every ration- 
al member of society owes a duty to the rest, as far as 
they become connected with each other, in maintain- 
ing the well-being of that society. Our domestic rela- 
tionships are regulated by laws written on our hearts, 
and fathers and mothers feel the claims of their off- 
spring upon their affections and vigilant care, to protect 
and to do them good, and every child feels, as soon as 
it can reason, that reverence and obedience are due to 
that parental love. But we all instinctively perceive 
that the claim ceases, unless enforced by affection ; for 
in fact, the right to govern is founded entirely on love, 
and he is disobedient to the law of God who endeavors 
to hold dominion on any other principle. This is the 
bond of all Divine appointment, in the relationships of 
humanity, and nothing can be tolerated by God which 
maybe hurtful, for His law means only — Thou shalt do 
no ill, but love thy fellow-being as thyself. And whoso- 
ever, apprehends this law, and does otherwise, acts 
against his conscience, and is condemned by his own 
heart. 

But where there is no law there is no transgression. 
The Almighty, however, has not left himself without 
witness, for wherever reason exists, there are to be 
Been evidences innumerable of His wisdom and good- 
ness. But reason itself grows blind, and without dis- 



CONSCIENCE. 297 

cernment, when mankind are driven by each other's 
cruelty and neglect to depend upon their animal 
cunning and instinct for sustenance and protection* 
Physical comfort and mental enjoyment, amidst appro- 
priate objects of affection, and with a knowledge of 
those grand truths most interesting to humanity, are 
essential to the right development of reason, and 
without them man's sublimer faculties of foresight aud 
reflection, and his power of inferring the future from 
the past, and the invisible from the evident, are all sur- 
rounded by a cloud, through which the light of heaven 
fails to pierce. The truth of this observation is demon- 
strable by reference to examples, which are found 
wherever hunger and ignorance, the two great brutal- 
izers of the human race, have done their worst, in re- 
ducing men to physical and mental degradation, as 
among those inhabitants of Sligo and northern Mayo 
who were driven out from their homes in 1641 and 
1689, and forced to live almost like wild beasts sur- 
rounded by their foes. Thus, also, is it with the Bush- 
mans, in their depth of miserable abasement, absolutely 
burrowing in holes of the earth, and supporting a low, 
dwarfish, and monstrous existence, with a loathsome 
industry by which they scarcely live. 

Ignorance and hunger, as before stated, are indeed 
the grand brutalizers of mankind. If we take a child 
from among the most degraded of the human family, 
and treat him as we would be treated — by kindness, 
and kindly associations, and suitable instruction — he 
becomes gradually elevated into a style of man alto- 
gether above his progenitors; and with the enlarge- 
ment of his mind begins the enlightenment of his 
conscience. But such is the inveteracy of inbred evil, 
that it requires as many generations to pass under 
advantages as had passed in degradation, before physi- 
cal and mental improvement can reach any consider- 



298 CONSCIENCE. 

able excellence. With these advantages, however, the 
savage features, both of body and mind, disappear, and 
instead of bearing the disgusting signs of barbarism 
upon the face, human beauty then mingles in the 
expression of all that is amiable and intelligent. Al- 
though, even in the lowest, most destitute, and miser- 
able state of human beings, some traces of kindly 
sociality are still visible among tribes and families, yet 
it is indisputable that conscience must be as degraded 
as their condition, for, in fact, such wretched depression 
precludes all but the merest animal claims upon the 
intellect. When men are without God they are also 
destitute of ennobling and elevating hopes; a sense of 
moral deficiency is unknown, and conscience, therefore, 
finds no occasion for exercise beyond the low accusings 
and excusings that spring from the acknowledged pro- 
priety, in some mean degree, of those affections with- 
out which kindred and kindness would be unknown. 

We perceive that argument agrees with fact, in as- 
suring us that human reason possesses but small ability 
to discover moral and spiritual truth, abstractedly con- 
sidered, or in the principles that are the foundation of 
correct thinking and acting. This inaptitude of our 
reason to reflect on spiritual motives, as the right 
ground of sociality and of religious feeling, arises not 
from inadequate endowment or from too limited a 
power of perception, but from the perversion of our 
affections. The faculties are usually engaged in a 
manner so far below their proper functions, that those 
ideas can not be excited in the soul by which it might 
be prompted and induced to look back, to meditate on 
its origin, or to penetrate the future, in search of its 
final appointment and the end and purpose of its being. 

Although, while without a knowledge of God's 
claims upon our spirits, we necessarily move like wan- 
dering stars without definite orbits, and subject to laws 



CONSCIENCE. 299 

and attractions beyond calculation, yet His attributes 
are not naturally and spontaneously the objects of our 
thoughts, and, indeed, when left to ourselves, we 
really do not acknowledge Him in any of our ways. 
But herein the prerogative of reason is manifested. 
When we are instructed concerning the being of God, 
either by inference from His handiworks, or from the 
dictation of His word, we at once, and as if intuitively, 
confess that He is truly Almighty and All- wise, the 
Author of all, and therefore the proper object of ado- 
ration and of trust, in whom ice live, and move, and 
have our being, and everlastingly possess the springs 
and energies of all our capacity of action and of ex- 
istence. And whosoever has received intelligence 
enough to discern this degree of truth, must either, in 
a corresponding faith, commit himself in obedient reli- 
ance unto his God, or else feel conscious of struggling 
on in a darkened path, according to the miserable 
waywardness of selfish habitude, believing, trembling, 
and defying, because, like an apostate spirit, the will 
is not at one with revealed Wisdom. The man who 
is in a state of will to receive revelation from the God 
of all wisdom, perceives the necessity and the blessed- 
ness of living in conscious dependence upon the in- 
struction, strength, and love of Him who is the faith- 
ful and unfailing Creator, because revelation itself is 
God's appeal to the heart and to the intellect of a 
being, that can make no progress in moral and spiritual 
improvement but as he is taught and attracted by the 
Divine character, as if speaking to him in the demonstra- 
tion of deeds done in his own nature, that truth might 
be felt in human consciousness as the reflex of God's 
will, and that thus true worship might be verily founded 
eternally upon sympathy between man and his Maker. 
Thus Mailer, the great historian, says, •• The Gos- 
pel is the fulfillment of all hopes, the perfection of all 



300 CONSCIENCE. 

philosophy, the interpreter of all revolutions, the key- 
to all seeming contradictions in the physical and moral 
world. It is life ; it is immortality. Since I have 
known the Saviour, every thing is clear; with Him 
there is nothing that I can not solve." 

When conscience speaks the truth, she declares 
that the Bible is the book of God. They both con- 
demn us on the very same principles — the breach of 
known law ; and they both assure us that there can be 
no safety or blessedness but in such a change in the 
state of the will as will not suffer us to rest in soul 
without a conformity of our desires and actions to the 
standard that we feel to be holy, just, and true. In 
short, enlightened reason tells us that we need a res- 
toration of the moral image of God, in order to salva- 
tion, and the Bible tells us the same thing, but with 
the important additional truth by which we are in- 
structed how that resemblance to the Holy One is 
obtained and perpetuated. Neither conscience nor 
the Bible will countenance any known evil, whether 
among nominal Christians or professed Infidels. By 
their condemning power they alike declare the voice 
of God. He speaks in both. To the heart he speaks. 
He will not tolerate any habit that opposes charity. 
He declares that every spirit that submits not to kind- 
ness is utterly reprobate, ungodly, unchristian, and in 
itself anathematized and hopeless, until convinced that 
Omnipotence is Love. Then repentant, it clings to 
the Almighty, and will not let Him go. Then its plea 
is valid. It claims eternal blessing from The Ever- 
lasting Father, and can not fail, because it hangs upon 
the bounty of that heart so freely opened to bestow its 
immense benevolence on all who seek the fellowship 
of the faithful Creator. To trust God, is to honor 
Him; to believe Him as our Parent, is to fiud Him 
so. To feel assured that He can not forsake us, is to 



CONSCIENCE. 301 

know that He more freely gives than we can ask. 
To cast off selfish anxiety, is to rest upon the Fathers 
bosom : and to look forward without fear, is practically 
to own and to enjoy the love that is perfect, and there- 
fore always prepare^ to sympathize with us in our 
trials, to rectify our souls, to anticipate our exigence, 
and eternally to provide for us. 



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